The Sheltering Sky

THE SHELTERING SKY Paul Bowles BOOK ONE TEA IN THE SAHARA BOOK TWO THE EARTH'S SHARP EDGE BOOK THREE THE SKY BOOK ONE TEA IN THE SAHARA Each man's destiny is personal only insofar as it may happen to resemble what is already in his memory --EDUARDO MALLEA Chapter 1 He awoke, opened his eyes. The room meant very little to him; he was too deeply immersed in the nonbeing from which he had just come.. If he had not the energy to ascertain his position in time and space, he also lacked the desire. He was somewhere, he had come back through vast regions from nowhere; there was the certitude of an infinite sadness at the core of his consciousness, but the sadness was reassuring, because it alone was familiar. He needed no further consolation. In utter comfort, utter relaxation he lay absolutely still for a while, and then sank back into one of the light momentary sleeps that occur after a long, profound one. Suddenly he opened his eyes again and looked at the watch on his wrist. It was purely a reflex action, for when he saw the time he was only confused. He sat up, gazed around the tawdry room, put his hand to his forehead, and sighing deeply, fell back onto the bed. But now he was awake; in another few seconds he knew where he was, he knew that the time was late afternoon, and that he had been sleeping since lunch. In the next room he could hear his wife stepping about in her mules on the smooth tile floor, and this sound now comforted him, since he had reached another level of consciousness where the mere certitude of being alive was not sufficient. But how difficult it was to accept the high, narrow room with its beamed ceiling, the huge apathetic designs stenciled in indifferent colors around the walls, the closed window of red and orange glass. He yawned: there was no air in the room. Later he would climb down from the high bed and fling the window open, and at that moment he would remember his dream. For although he could not recall a detail of it, he knew he had dreamed. On the other side of the window there would be air, the roofs, the town, the sea. The evening wind would cool his face as he stood looking, and at that moment the dream would be there. Now he only could lie as he was, breathing slowly, almost ready to fall asleep again, paralyzed in the airless room, not waiting for twilight but staying as he was until it should come. Chapter 2 On the terrace of the Cafe d'Eckmuhl-Noiseux a few Arabs sat drinking mineral water; only their fezzes of varying shades of red distinguished them from the rest of the population of the port. Their European clothes were worn and gray; it would have been hard to tell what the cut of any garment had been originally. The nearly naked shoeshine boys squatted on their boxes looking down at the pavement, without the energy to wave away the flies that crawled over their faces. Inside the cafe the air was cooler but without movement, and it smelled of stale wine and urine. At the table in the darkest corner sat three Americans: two young men and a girl. They conversed quietly, and in the manner of people who have all the time in the world for everything. One of the men, the thin one with a slightly wry, distraught face, was folding up some large multicolored maps he had spread out on the table a moment ago. His wife watched the meticulous movements he made with amusement and exasperation; maps bored her, and he was always consulting them. Even during the short periods when their lives were stationary, which had been few enough since their marriage twelve years ago, he had only to see a map to begin studying it passionately, and then, often as not, he would begin to plan some new, impossible trip which sometimes eventually became a reality. He did not think of himself as a tourist; he was a traveler. The difference is partly one of time, he would explain. Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler, belonging no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly, over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another. Indeed, he would have found it difficult to tell, among the many places he had lived, precisely where it was he had felt most at home. Before the war it had been Europe and the Near East, during the war the West Indies and South America. And she had accompanied him without reiterating her complaints too often or too bitterly. At this point they had crossed the Atlantic for the first time since 1939, with a great deal of luggage and the intention of keeping as far as possible from the places which had been touched by the war. For, as he claimed, another important difference between tourist and traveler is that the former accepts his own civilization without question; not so the traveler, who compares it with the others, and rejects those elements he finds not to his liking. And the war was one facet of the mechanized age he wanted to forget. In New York they had found that North Africa was one of the few places they could get boat passage to. From his earlier visits, made during his student days in Paris and Madrid, it seemed a likely place to spend a year or so; in any case it was near Spain and Italy, and they could always cross over if it failed to work out. Their little freighter had spewed them out from its comfortable maw the day before onto the hot docks, sweating and scowling with anxiety, where for a long time no one had paid them the slightest attention. As he stood there in the burning sun, he had been tempted to go back aboard and see about taking passage for the continuing voyage to Istanbul, but it would have been difficult to do without losing face, since it was he who had cajoled them into coming to North Africa. So he had cast a matter-of-fact glance up and down the dock, made a few reasonably unflattering remarks about the place, and let it go at that, silently resolving to start inland as quickly as possible. The other man at the table, when he was not talking, kept whistling aimless little tunes under his breath. He was a few years younger, of sturdier build, and astonishingly handsome, as the girl often told him, in his late Paramount way. Usually there was very little expression of any sort to be found on his smooth face, but the features were formed in such a manner that in repose they suggested a general bland contentment. They stared out into the street's dusty afternoon glare. "The war has certainly left its mark here." Smail, with blonde hair and an olive complexion, she was saved from prettiness by the intensity of her gaze. Once one had seen her eyes, the rest of the face grew vague, and when one tried to recall her image afterwards, only the piercing, questioning violence of the wide eyes remained. "Well, naturally. There were troops passing through for a year or more." "It seems as though there might be some place in the world they could have left alone," said the girl. This was to please her husband, because she regretted having felt annoyed with him about the maps a moment ago. Recognizing the gesture, but not understanding why she was making it, he paid no attention to it. The other man laughed patronizingly, and he joined in. "For your special benefit, I suppose?" said her husband. "For us. You know you hate the whole thing as much as I do." "What whole thing?" he demanded defensively. "If you mean this colorless mess here that calls itself a town, yes. But I'd still a damned sight rather be here than back in the United States." She hastened to agree. "Oh, of course. But I didn't mean this place or any other particular place. I meant the whole horrible thing that happens after every war, everywhere." "Come, Kit," said the other man. "You don't remember any other war." She paid him no attention. "The people of each country get more like the people of every other country. They have no character,

no beauty, no ideals, no culture-nothing, nothing." Her husband reached over and patted her hand. "You're right. You're right," he said smiling. "Everything's getting gray, and it'll be grayer. But some places'll withstand the malady longer than you think. You'll see, in the Sahara here..." Across the street a radio was sending forth the hysterical screams of a coloratura soprano. Kit shivered. "Let's hurry up and get there," she said. "Maybe we could escape that." They listened fascinated as the aria, drawing to a close, made the orthodox preparations for the inevitable high final note. Presently Kit said: "Now that that's over, I've got to have another bottle of Oulmes." "My God, more of that gas? You'll take off." "I know, Tunner," she said, "but I can't get my mind off water. It doesn't matter what I look at, it makes me thirsty. For once I feel as if I could get on the wagon and stay there. I can't drink in the heat." "Another Pernod?" said Tunner to Port. Kit frowned. "If it were real Pernod-" "It's not bad," said Tunner, as the waiter set a bottle of mineral water on the table. "Ce n'est pas du vrai Pernod?" "Si, si, c'est du Pernod," said the waiter. "Let's have another set-up," Port said. He stared at his glass dully. No one spoke as the waiter moved away. The soprano began another aria. "She's off!" cried Tunner. The din of a street car and its bell passing across the terrace outside, drowned the music for a moment. Beneath the awning they had a glimpse of the open vehicle in the sunshine as it rocked past. It was crowded with people in tattered clothes. Port said: "I had a strange dream yesterday. I've been trying to remember it, and just this minute I did." "No!" cried Kit with force. "Dreams are so dull! Please!" "You don't want to hear it!" he laughed. "But I'm going to tell it to you anyway." The last was said with a certain ferocity which on the surface appeared feigned, but as Kit looked at him she felt that on the contrary he actually was dissimulating the violence he felt. She did not say the withering things that were on the tip of her tongue. "I'll be quick about it," he smiled. "I know you're doing me a favor by listening, but I can't remember it just thinking about it. It was daytime and I was on a train that kept putting on speed. I thought to myself. 'We're going to plough into a big bed with the sheets all in mountains.' " Tunner said archly: "Consult Madame La Hiff's Gypsy Dream Dictionary." "Shut up. And I was thinking that if I wanted to, I could live over again-start at the beginning and come right on up to the present, having exactly the same life, down to the smallest detail." Kit closed her eyes unhappily. "What's the matter?" he demanded. "I think it's extremely thoughtless and egotistical of you to insist this way when you know how boring it is for us." "But I'm enjoying it so much." He beamed. "And I'll bet Tunner wants to hear it, anyway. Don't you?" Tunner smiled. "Dreams are my cup of tea. I know my La Hiff by heart." Kit opened one eye and looked at him. The drinks arrived. "So I said to myself, 'No! No!' I couldn't face the idea of all those God-awful fears and pains again, in detail. And then for no reason I looked out the window at the trees and heard myself say: 'Yes!' Because I knew I'd be willing to go through the whole thing again just to smell the spring the way it used to smell when I was a kid. But then I realized it was too late, because while I'd been thinking 'No!' I'd reached up and snapped off my incisors as if they'd been made of plaster. The train had stopped and I held my teeth in my hand, and I started to sob. You know those terrible dream sobs that shake you like an earthquake?" Clumsily Kit rose from the table and walked to a door marked Dames. She was crying. "Let her go," said Port to Tunner, whose face showed concern. "She's worn out. The heat gets her down." Chapter 3 He sat up in bed reading, wearing only a pair of shorts. The door between their two rooms was open, and so were the windows. Over the town and harbor a lighthouse played its beam in a wide, slow circle, and above the desultory traffic an insistent electric bell shrilled without respite. "Is that the movie next door?" called Kit. "Must be," he said absently, still reading. "I wonder what they're showing." "What?" He laid down his book. "Don't tell me you're interested in going!" "No." She sounded doubtful. "I just wondered." "I'll tell you what it is. It's a film in Arabic called Fiancee for Rent. That's what it says under the title." " It's unbelievable." "I know." She wandered into the room, thoughtfully smoking a cigarette, and walked about in a circle for a minute or so. He looked up. "What is it?" he asked. "Nothing." She paused. "I'm just a little upset. I don't think you should have told that dream in front of Tunner." He did not dare say: "Is that why you cried?" But he said: "In front of him! I told it to him, as much as to you. What's a dream? Good God, don't take everything so seriously! And why shouldn't he hear it? What's wrong with Tunner? We've known him for five years." "He's such a gossip. You know that. I don't trust him. He always makes a good story." "But who's he going to gossip with here?" said Port, exasperated. Kit in turn was annoyed. "Oh, not here!" she snapped. "You seem to forget we'll be back in New York some day." "I know, I know. It's hard to believe, but I suppose we will. All right. What's so awful if he remembers every detail and tells it to everybody we know?" "It's such a humiliating dream. Can't you see?" "Oh, crap!" There was a silence. "Humiliating to whom? You or me?" She did not answer. He pursued: "What do you mean, you don't trust Tunner? In what way?" "Oh, I trust him, I suppose. But I've never felt completely at ease with him. I've never felt he was a close friend." "That's nice, now that we're here with him!" "Oh, it's all right. I like him very much. Don't misunderstand." "But you must mean something." "Of course I mean something. But it's not important." She went back into her own room. He remained a moment, looking at the ceiling, a puzzled expression on his face. He started to read again, and stopped. "Sure you don't want to see Fiancee for Rent?" "I certainly don't." He closed his book. "I think I'll take a walk for about a half an hour." He rose, put on a sports shirt and a pair of seersucker trousers, and combed his hair. In her room, she was sitting by the open window, filing her nails. He bent over her and kissed the nape of her neck, where the silky blonde hair climbed upward in wavy furrows. "That's wonderful stuff you have on. Did you get it here?" He sniffed noisily, with appreciation. Then his voice changed when he said: "But what did you mean about Tunner?" "Oh, Port! For God's sake, stop talking about it!" "All right, baby", he said submissively, kissing her shoulder. And with an inflection of mock innocence: "Can't I even think about it?" She said nothing until he got to the door. Then she raised her head, and there was pique in her voice: "After all, it's much more your business than it is mine." "See you soon," he said. Chapter 4 He walked through the streets, unthinkingly seeking the darker ones, glad to be alone and to feel the night air against his face. The streets were crowded. People pushed against him as they passed, stared from doorways and windows, made comments openly to each other about him-whether with sympathy or not he was unable to tell from their faces-and they sometimes ceased to walk merely in order to watch him. "How friendly are they? Their faces are masks. They all look a thousand years old. What little energy they have is only the blind, mass desire to live, since no one of them eats enough to give him his own personal force. But what do they think of me? Probably nothing. Would one of them help me if I were to have an accident? Or would I lie here in the street until the police found me? What motive could any one of them have for helping me? They have no religion left. Are they Moslems or Christians? They don't know. They know money, and when they get it, all they want is to eat. But what's wrong with that? Why do I feel this way about them? Guilt at being well fed and healthy among them? But suffering is equally divided among all men; each has the same amount to undergo Emotionally he felt that this last idea was untrue, but at the moment it was a necessary belief. it is not always easy to support the stares of hungry people. Thinking that way he could walk on through the streets. It was as if either he or they did not exist. Both suppositions were possible. The Spanish maid at the hotel had said to him that noon: "La vida es pena." "Of course," he had replied, feeling false even as he spoke, asking himself if any American can truthfully accept a definition of life which makes it synonymous with suffering. But at the moment he had approved her sentiment because she was old, withered, so clearly of the people. For years it had been one of his superstitions that reality and true perception were to be found in the conversation of the laboring classes. Even though now he saw clearly that their formulas of thought and speech are as strict and as patterned, and thus as far removed from any profound expression of truth as those of any other class, often he found himself still in the act of waiting, with the unreasoning belief that gems of wisdom might yet issue from their mouths. As he walked along, his nervousness was made manifest to him by the sudden consciousness that he was repeatedly tracing rapid figure-eights with his right index finger. He sighed and made himself stop doing it. His spirits rose a bit as he came out onto a square that was relatively brightly lighted. The cafes on all four sides of the little plaza had put tables and chairs not only across the sidewalks, but in the street as well, so that it would have been impossible for a vehicle to pass through without upsetting them. In the center of the square was a tiny park adorned by four plane trees that had been trimmed to look like open parasols. Underneath the trees there were at least a dozen dogs of various sizes, milling about in a close huddle, and all barking frantically. He made his way slowly across the square, trying to avoid the dogs. As he moved along cautiously under the trees he became aware that at each step he was crushing something beneath his feet. The ground was covered with large insects; their hard shells broke with little explosions that were quite audible to him even amidst the noise the dogs were making. He was aware that ordinarily he would have experienced a thrill of

disgust on contact with such a phenomenon, but unreasonably tonight he felt instead a childish triumph. "I'm in a bad way and so what?" The few scattered people sitting at the tables were for the most part silent, but when they spoke, he heard all three of the town's tongues: Arabic, Spanish and French. Slowly the street began to descend; this surprised him because he imagined that the entire town was built on the slope facing the harbor, and he had consciously chosen to walk inland rather than toward the waterfront. The odors in the air grew ever stronger. They were varied, but they all represented filth of one sort or another. This proximity with, as it were, a forbidden element, served to elate him. He abandoned himself to the perverse pleasure he found in continuing mechanically to put one foot in front of the other, even though he was quite clearly aware of his fatigue. "Suddenly I'll find myself turning around and going back," he thought. But not until then, because he would not make the decision to do it. The impulse to retrace his steps delayed itself from moment to moment. Finally he ceased being surprised: a faint vision began to haunt his mind. It was Kit, seated by the open window, filing her nails and looking out over the town. And as he found his fancy returning more often, as the minutes went by, to that scene, unconsciously he felt himself the protagonist, Kit the spectator. The validity of his existence at that moment was predicated on the assumption that she had not moved, but was still sitting there. It was as if she could still see him from the window, tiny and far away as he was, walking rhythmically uphill and down, through light and shadow; it was as if only she knew when he would turn around and walk the other way. The street lights were very far apart now, and the streets had left off being paved. Still there were children in the gutters, playing with the garbage and screeching. A small stone suddenly hit him in the back. He wheeled about, but it was too dark to see where it had come from. A few seconds later another stone, coming from in front of him, landed against his knee. In the dim light, he saw a group of small children scattering before him. More stones came from the other direction, this time without hitting him. When he got beyond, to a point where there was a light, he stopped and tried to watch the two groups in battle, but they all ran off into the dark, and so he started up again, his gait as mechanical and rhythmical as before. A wind that was dry and warm, coming up the street out of the blackness before him, met him head on. He sniffed at the fragments of mystery in it, and again he felt an unaccustomed exaltation. Even though the street became constantly less urban, it seemed reluctant to give up; huts continued to line it on both sides. Beyond a certain point there were no more lights, and the dwellings themselves lay in darkness. The wind, straight from the south, blew across the barren mountains that were invisible ahead of him, over the vast flat sebkha to the edges of the town, raising curtains of dust that climbed to the crest of the hill and lost themselves in the air above the harbor. He stood still. The last possible suburb had been strung on the street's thread. Beyond the final hut the garbage and rubble floor of the road sloped abruptly downward in three directions. In the dimness below were shallow, crooked canyon-like formations. Port raised his eyes to the sky: the powdery course of the Milky Way was like a giant rift across the heavens that let the faint white light through. In the distance he heard a motorcycle. When its sound was finally gone, there was nothing to hear but an occasional cockcrow, like the highest part of a repeated melody whose other notes were inaudible. He started down the bank to the right, sliding among the fish skeletons and dust. Once below, he felt out a rock that seemed clean and sat down on it. The stench was overpowering. He lit a match, saw the ground thick with chicken feathers and decayed melon rinds. As he rose to his feet he heard steps above him at the end of the street. A figure stood at the top of the embankment. It did not speak, yet Port was certain that it had seen him, had followed him, and knew he was sitting down there. It lit a cigarette, and for a moment he saw an Arab wearing a chechia on his head. The match, thrown into the air, made a fading parabola, the face disappeared, and only the red point of the cigarette remained. The cock crowed several times. Finally the man cried out. "Qu'est-ce ti cherches la?" "Here's where the trouble begins," thought Port. He did not move. The Arab waited a bit. He walked to the very edge of the slope. A dislodged tin can rolled noisily down toward the rock where Port sat. "He! M'sieu! Qu'est-ce ti vo?" He decided to answer. His French was good. "Who? Me? Nothing." The Arab bounded down the bank and stood in front of him. With the characteristic impatient, almost indignant gestures he pursued his inquisition. What are you doing here all alone? Where do you come from? What do you want here? Are you looking for something? To which Port answered wearily: Nothing. That way. Nothing. No. For a moment the Arab was silent, trying to decide what direction to give the dialogue. He drew violently on his cigarette several times until it glowed very bright, then he flicked it away and exhaled the smoke. "Do you want to take a walk?" he said. "What? A walk? Where?" "Out there." His arm waved toward the mountains. "What's out there?" "Nothing." There was another silence between them. "I'll pay you a drink," said the Arab. And immediately on that: "What's your name?" "Jean," said Port. The Arab repeated the name twice, as if considering its merits. "Me," tapping his chest, "Smail. So, do we go and drink?" "No." "Why not?" "I don't feel like it." "You don't feel like it. What do you feel like doing?" "Nothing." All at once the conversation began again from the beginning. Only the now truly outraged inflection of the Arab's voice marked any difference: "Qu'est-ce ti_fi Ia? Qu'estce ti cherches?" Port rose and started to climb up the slope, but it was difficult going. He kept sliding back down. At once the Arab was beside him, tugging at his arm. "Where are you going, Jean?" Without answering Port made a great effort and gained the top. "Au revoir," he called, walking quickly up the middle of the street. He heard a desperate scrambling behind him; a moment later the man was at his side. "You didn't wait for me," he said in an aggrieved tone. "No. I said good-bye." "I'll go with you." Port did not answer. They walked a good distance in silence. When they came to the first street light, the Arab reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn wallet. Port glanced at it and continued to walk. "Look!" cried the Arab, waving it in his face. Port did not look. "What is it?" he said flatly. "I was in the Fifth Battalion of Sharpshooters. Look at the paper! Look! You'll see!" Port walked faster. Soon there began to be people in the street. No one stared at them. One would have said that the presence of the Arab beside him made him invisible. But now he was no longer sure of the way. It would never do to let this be seen. He continued to walk straight ahead as if there were no doubt in his mind. "Over the crest of the hill and down," he said to himself, "and I can't miss it." Everything looked unfamiliar: the houses, the streets, the cafes, even the formation of the town with regard to the hill. Instead of finding a summit from which to begin the downward walk, he discovered that here the streets all led perceptibly upward, no matter which way he turned; to descend he would have had to go back. The Arab walked solemnly along with him, now beside him, now slipping behind when there was not enough room to walk two abreast. He no longer made attempts at conversation; Port noticed with relish that he was a little out of breath. "I can keep this up all night if I have to," he thought, "but how the hell will I get to the hotel?" All at once they were in a street which was no more than a passageway. Above their heads the opposite walls jutted out to within a few inches of each other. For an instant Port hesitated: this was not the kind of street he wanted to walk in, and besides, it so obviously did not lead to the hotel. In that short moment the Arab took charge. He said: "You don't know this street? It's called Rue de la Mer Rouge. You know it? Come on. There are cafis arabes up this way. Just a little way. Come on." Port considered. He wanted at all costs to keep up the pretense of being familiar with the town. 'Je ne sais pas si je veux y aller ce soir, " he reflected, aloud. The Arab began to pull Port's sleeve in his excitement. "Si, si!" he cried. "Viens! I'll pay you a drink." "I don't drink. It's very late." Two cats nearby screamed at each other. The Arab made a hissing noise and stamped his feet; they ran off in opposite directions. "We'll have tea, then," he pursued. Port sighed. "Bien," he said. The cafe had a complicated entrance. They went through a low arched door, down a dim hall into a small garden. The air reeked of lilies, and it was also tinged with the sour smell of drains. In the dark they crossed the garden and climbed a long flight of stone steps. The staccato sound of a hand drum came from above, tapping indolent patterns above a sea of voices. "Do we sit outside or in?" the Arab asked. "Outside," said Port. He sniffed the invigorating smell of hashish smoke, and unconsciously smoothed his hair as they arrived at the top of the stairs. The Arab noticed even that small gesture. "No ladies here, you know." "Oh, I know." Through a doorway he caught a glimpse of the long succession of tiny, brightly-lit rooms, and the men seated everywhere on the reed matting that covered the floors. They all wore either white turbans or red chechias on their heads, a detail which lent the scene such a strong aspect of homogeneity that Port exclaimed: "Ah!" as they passed by the door. When they were on the terrace in the starlight, with an oud being plucked idly in the dark nearby, he said to his companion: "But I didn't know there was anything like this left in this city." The Arab did not understand. "Like this?" he echoed. "How?" "With nothing but Arabs. Like the inside here. I thought all the cafes were like the ones in the street, all mixed up; Jews, French, Spanish, Arabs together. I thought the war had changed everything." The Arab laughed. "The war was bad. A lot of people died. There was nothing to eat. That's all. How would that change the cafes? Oh no, my friend. It's the same as always." A moment later he said: "So you haven't been here since the war! But you were here before the war?" "Yes," said Port. This was true; he had once spent an afternoon in the town when his boat had made a brief call there. The tea arrived; they chatted and drank it. Slowly the image of Kit sitting in the window began to take shape again in Port's mind. At first, when he became conscious of it, he felt a pang of guilt. Then his fantasy took a hand, and he saw her face, tight-lipped with fury as she undressed and flung her flimsy pieces of clothing across the furniture. By now she had surely given up waiting and gone to bed. He shrugged his shoulders and grew pensive, rinsing what was left of his tea around and around in the bottom of the glass, and following with his eyes the circular motion he was making. "You're sad," said Smail. "No, no." He looked up and smiled wistfully, then resumed watching the glass. "You live only a short time. Il faut rigoler." Port was

impatient; he was not in the mood for cafe philosophizing. "Yes, I know," he said shortly, and he sighed. Smail pinched his arm. His eyes were shining. "When we leave here, I'll take you to see a friend of mine." "I don't want to meet him," said Port, adding: "Thank you anyway." "Ah, you're really sad," laughed Smail. "It's a girl. Beautiful as the moon." Port's heart missed a beat. "A girl," he repeated automatically, without taking his eyes from the glass. He was perturbed to witness his own interior excitement. He looked at Smail. "A girl?" he said. "You mean a whore." Smail was mildly indignant. "A whore? Ah, my friend, you don't know me. I wouldn't introduce you to that. Cest de la saloperie, ca! This is a friend of mine, very elegant, very nice. When you meet her, you'll see." The musician stopped playing the oud. Inside the cafe they were calling out numbers for the lotto game: "Ouahad aou tletine! Arbaine!" Port said: "How old is she?" Smail hesitated. "About sixteen. Sixteen or seventeen." "Or twenty or twenty-five," suggested Port, with a leer. Again Smail was indignant. "What do you mean, twenty-five? I tell you she's sixteen or seventeen. You don't believe me? Listen. You meet her. If you don't like her, you just pay for the tea and we'll go out again. Is that all right?" "And if I do like her?" "Well, you'll do whatever you want.� "But I'll pay her?" "But of course you'll pay her." Port laughed. "And you say she's not a whore." Smail leaned over the table towards him and said with a great show of patience: "Listen, Jean. She's a dancer. She only arrived from her bled in the desert a few weeks ago. How can she be a whore if she's not registered and doesn't live in the quartier? Eh? Tell me! You pay her because you take up her time. She dances in the quartier, but she has no room, no bed there. She's not a whore. So now, shall we go?" Port thought a long time, looked up at the sky, down into the garden, and all around the terrace before answering: "Yes. Let's go. Now." Chapter 5 When they left the cafe it seemed to him that they were going more or less in the same direction from which they had just come. There were fewer people in the streets and the air was cooler. They walked for a good distance through the Casbah, making a sudden exit through a tall gateway onto a high, open space outside the walls. Here it was silent, and the stars were very much in evidence. The pleasure he felt at the unexpected freshness of the air and the relief at being in the open once more, out from under the overhanging houses, served to delay Port in asking the question that was in his mind: "Where are we going?" But as they continued along what seemed a parapet at the edge of a deep, dry moat, he finally gave voice to it. Smail replied vaguely that the girl lived with some friends at the edge of town. "But we're already in the country," objected Port. "Yes, it's the country," said Smail. It was perfectly clear that he was being evasive now; his character seemed to have changed again. The beginning of intimacy was gone. To Port he was once more the anonymous dark figure that had stood above him in the garbage at the end of the street, smoking a bright cigarette. You can still break it up. Stop walking. Now. But the combined even rhythm of their feet on the stones was too powerful. The parapet made a wide curve and the ground below dropped steeply away into a deeper darkness. The moat had ended some hundred feet back. They were now high above the upper end of an open valley. "The Turkish fortress," remarked Smail, pounding on the stones with his heel. "Listen to me," began Port angrily, "where are we going?" He looked at the rim of uneven black mountains ahead of them on the horizon. "Down there." Smail pointed to the valley. A moment later he stopped walking. "Here are the stairs." They leaned over the ledge. A narrow iron staircase was fastened to the side of the wall. It had no railing and led straight downward at a steep angle. "It's a long way," said Port. "Ah, yes, it's the Turkish fortress. You see that light down there?" He indicated a faint red glimmer that came and went almost directly beneath them. "That's the tent where she lives." "The tent!" "There are no houses down here. Only tents. There are a lot of them. On descend?" Smail went first, keeping close to the wall. "Touch the stones," he said. As they approached the bottom, he saw that the feeble glow of light was a dying bonfire built in an open space between two large nomad tents. Smail suddenly stopped to listen. There was an indistinguishable murmur of male voices. "Allonsy," he muttered; his voice sounded satisfied. They reached the end of the staircase. There was hard ground beneath their feet. To his left Port saw the black silhouette of a huge agave plant in flower. "Wait here," whispered Smail. Port was about to light a cigarette; Smail hit his arm angrily. "No!" he whispered. "But what is it?" began Port, highly annoyed at the show of secrecy. Smail disappeared. Leaning against the cold rock wall, Port waited to hear a break in the monotonous, low-pitched conversation, an exchange of greetings, but nothing happened. The voices went on exactly as before, an uninterrupted flow of expressionless sounds. "He must have gone into the other tent," he thought. One side of the farther tent flickered pink in the light of the bonfire; beyond was darkness. He edged a few steps along the wall, trying to see the entrance of the tent, but it faced in the other direction. Then he listened for the sound of voices there, but none came. For no reason at all he suddenly heard Kit's parting remark as he had left her room: "After all, it's much more your business than it is mine." Even now the words meant nothing in particular to him, but he remembered the tone in which she had said it: she had sounded hurt and rebellious. And it was all about Tunner. He stood up straight. "He's been after her," he whispered aloud. Abruptly he turned and went to the staircase, started up it. After six steps he stopped and looked around. "What can I do tonight?" he thought. "I'm using this as an excuse to get out of here, because I'm afraid. What the hell, he'll never get her." A figure darted out from between the two tents and ran lightly to the foot of the stairs. "Jean!" it whispered. Port stood still. "Ah! ti es la! What are you doing up there? Come on!" Port walked slowly back down. Smail stepped out of his way, took his arm. "Why can't we talk?" whispered Port. Smail squeezed his arm. "Shh!" he said into his ear. They skirted the nearer tent, brushing past a clump of high thistles, and made their way over the stones to the entrance of the other. "Take off your shoes," commanded Smail, slipping off his sandals. "Not a good idea," thought Port. "No," he said aloud. "Shh!" Smail pushed him inside, shoes still on. The central part of the tent was high enough to stand up in. A short candle stuck on top of a chest near the entrance provided the light, so that the nether parts of the tent were in almost complete darkness. Lengths of straw matting had been spread on the ground at senseless angles; objects were scattered everywhere in utter disorder. There was no one in the tent waiting for them. "Sit down," said Smail, acting the host. He cleared the largest piece of matting of an alarm clock, a sardine can, and an ancient, incredibly greasy pair of overalls. Port sat down and put his elbows on his knees. On the mat next to him lay a chipped enamel bedpan, half filled with a darkish liquid. There were bits of stale bread everywhere. He lit a cigarette without offering one to Smail, who returned to stand near the entrance, looking out. And suddenly she stepped inside-a slim, wild-looking girl with great dark eyes. She was dressed in spotless white, with a white turban-like headdress that pulled her hair tightly backward, accentuating the indigo designs tattooed on her forehead. Once inside the tent, she stood quite still, looking at Port with something of the expression, he thought, the young bull often wears as he takes the first few steps into the glare of the arena. There was bewilderment, fear, and a passive expectancy in her face as she stared quietly at him. "Ah, here she is!" said Smail, still in a hushed voice. "Her name is Marhnia." He waited a bit. Port rose and stepped forward to take her hand. "She doesn't speak French," Smail explained. Without smiling, she touched Port's hand lightly with her own and raised her fingers to her lips. Bowing, she said, in what amounted almost to a whisper: "Ya sidi, la bess alik? Egles, baraka 'Iaou'fik." With gracious dignity and a peculiar modesty of movement, she unstuck the lighted candle from the chest, and walked across to the back of the tent, where a blanket stretched from the ceiling formed a partial alcove. Before disappearing behind the blanket, she turned her head to them, and said, gesturing: "Agi! Agi menah!" The two men followed her into the alcove, where an old mattress had been laid on some low boxes in an attempt to make a salon. There was a tiny tea table beside the improvised divan, and a pile of small, lumpy cushions lay on the mat by the table. The girl set the candle down on the bare earth and began to arrange the cushions along the mattress. "Essmah!" she said to Port, and to Smail: "Tsekellem bellatsi. " Then she went out. He laughed and called after her in a low voice: 'Fhemtek!" Port was intrigued by the girl, but the language barrier annoyed him, and he was even more irritated by the fact that Smail and she could converse together in his presence. "She's gone to get fire," said Smail. "Yes, yes," said Port, "but why do we have to whisper?" Smail rolled his eyes toward the tent's entrance. "The men in the other tent," he said. Presently she returned, carrying an earthen pot of bright coals. While she was boiling the water and preparing the tea, Smail chatted with her. Her replies were always grave, her voice hushed but pleasantly modulated. It seemed to Port that she was much more like a young nun than a cafe dancer. At the same time he did not in the least trust her, being content to sit and marvel at the delicate movements of her nimble, henna-stained fingers as she tore the stalks of mint apart and stuffed them into the little teapot. When she had sampled the tea several times and eventually had found it to her liking, she handed them each a glass, and with a solemn air sat back on her haunches and began to drink hers. "Sit here," said Port, patting the couch beside him. She indicated that she was quite happy where she was, and thanked him politely. Turning her attention to Smail, she proceeded to engage him in a lengthy conversation during which Port sipped his tea and tried to relax. He had an oppressive sensation that daybreak was near at hand-surely not more than an hour or so away, and he felt that all this time was being wasted. He looked anxiously at his watch; it had stopped at five minutes of two. But it was still going. Surely it must be later than that.

Marhnia addressed a question to Smail which seemed to include Port. "She wants to know if you have heard the story about Outka, Mimouna and Aicha," said Smail. "No," said Port. "Goul lou, goul lou, " said Marhnia to Smail, urging him. "There are three girls from the mountains, from a place near Marhnia's bled, and they are called Outka, Mimouna and Aicha." Marhnia was nodding her head slowly in affirmation, her large soft eyes fixed on Port. "They go to seek their fortune in the M'Zab. Most girls from the mountains go to Alger, Tunis, here, to earn money, but these girls want one thing more than everything else. They want to drink tea in the Sahara." Marhnia continued to nod her head; she was keeping up with the story solely by means of the place-names as Smail pronounced them. "I see," said Port, who had no idea whether the story was a humorous one or a tragic one; he was determined to be careful, so that he could pretend to savor it as much as she clearly hoped he would. He only wished it might be short. "In the M'Zab the men are all ugly. The girls dance in the cafes of Ghardaia, but they are always sad; they still want to have tea in the Sahara." Port glanced again at Marhnia. Her expression was completely serious. He nodded his head again. "So, many months pass, and they are still in the M'Zab, and they are very, very sad, because the men are all so ugly. They are very ugly there, like pigs. And they don't pay enough money to the poor girls so they can go and have tea in the Sahara." Each time he said "Sahara," which he pronounced in the Arabic fashion, with a vehement accent on the first syllable, he stopped for a moment. "One day a Targui comes, he is tall and handsome, on a beautiful mehari; he talks to Outka, Mimouna and Aicha, he tells them about the desert, down there where he lives, his bled, and they listen, and their eyes are big. Then he says: 'Dance for me,' and they dance. Then he makes love with all three, he gives a silver piece to Outka, a silver piece to Mimouna, and a silver piece to Alcha. At daybreak he gets on his mehari and goes away to the south. After that they are very sad, and the M'Zabi look uglier than ever to them, and they only are thinking of the tall Targui who lives in the Sahara." Port lit a cigarette; then he noticed Marhnia looking expectantly at him, and he passed her the pack. She took one, and with a crude pair of tongs elegantly lifted a live coal to the end of it. It ignited immediately, whereupon she passed it to Port, taking his in exchange. He smiled at her. She bowed almost imperceptibly. "Many months go by, and still they can't earn enough money to go to the Sahara. They have kept the silver pieces, because all three are in love with the Targui. And they are always sad. One day they say: 'We are going to finish like this-always sad, without ever having tea in the Sahara-so now we must go anyway, even without money.' And they put all their money together, even the three silver pieces, and they buy a teapot and a tray and three glasses, and they buy bus tickets to El Golea. And there they have only a little money left, and they give it all to a bachhamar who is taking his caravan south to the Sahara. So he lets them ride with his caravan. And one night, when the sun is going to go down, they come to the great dunes of sand, and they think: 'Ah, now we are in the Sahara; we are going to make tea.' The moon comes up, all the men are asleep except the guard. He is sitting with the camels playing his flute." Smail wriggled his fingers in front of his mouth. "Outka, Mimouna and Aicha go away from the caravan quietly with their tray and their teapot and their glasses. They are going to look for the highest dune so they can see all the Sahara. Then they are going to make tea. They walk a long time. Outka says: 'I see a high dune,' and they go to it and climb up to the top. Then Mimouna says: 'I see a dune over there. It's much higher and we can see all the way to In Salah from it.' So they go to it, and it is much higher. But when they get to the top, Aicha says: 'Look! There's the highest dune of all. We can see to Tamanrasset. That's where the Targui lives.' The sun came up and they kept walking. At noon they were very hot. But they came to the dune and they climbed and climbed. When they got to the top they were very tired and they said: 'We'll rest a little and then make tea.' But first they set out the tray and the teapot and the glasses. Then they lay down and slept. And then" -Smail paused and looked at Port- "Many days later another caravan was passing and a man saw something on top of the highest dune there. And when they went up to see, they found Outka, Mimouna and Aicha; they were still there, lying the same way as when they had gone to sleep. And all three of the glasses," he held up his own little tea glass, "were full of sand. That was how they had their tea in the Sahara." There was a long silence. It was obviously the end of the story. Port looked at Marhnia; she was still nodding her head, her eyes fixed on him. He decided to hazard a remark. "It's very sad," he said. She immediately inquired of SmaV what he had said. "Gallik merhmoum bz~f " translated SmA. She shut her eyes slowly and continued to nod her head. "Ei oua!" she said, opening them again. Port turned quickly to Smail. "Listen, it's very late. I want to arrange a price with her. How much should I give her?" Smail looked scandalized. "You can't do that as if you were dealing with a whore! Ci pas une putain, je t'ai dit!" "But I'll pay her if I stay with her?" "Of course." "Then I want to arrange it now." "I can't do that for you, my friend." Port shrugged his shoulders and stood up. "I've got to go. It's late." Marhnia looked quickly from one man to the other. Then she said a word or two in a very soft voice to Smail, who frowned but stalked out of the tent yawning. They lay on the couch together. She was very beautiful, very docile, very understanding, and still he did not trust her. She declined to disrobe completely, but in her delicate gestures of refusal he discerned an ultimate yielding, to bring about which it would require only time. With time he could have had her confidence; tonight he could only have that which had been taken for granted from the beginning. He reflected on this as he lay, looking into her untroubled face, remembered that he was leaving for the south in a day or two, inwardly swore at his luck, and said to himself. "Better half a loaf." Marhnia leaned over and snuffed the candle between her fingers. For a second there was utter silence, utter blackness. Then he felt her soft arms slowly encircle his neck, and her lips on his forehead. Almost immediately a dog began to howl in the distance. For a while he did not hear it; when he did, it troubled him. It was the wrong music for the moment. Soon he found himself imagining that Kit was a silent onlooker. The fantasy stimulated him-the lugubrious howling no longer bothered him. Not more than a quarter of an hour later, he got up and peered around the blanket, to the flap of the tent: it was still dark. He was seized with an abrupt desire to be out of the place. He sat down on the couch and began to arrange his clothing. The two arms stole up again, locked themselves about his neck. Firmly he pulled them away, gave them a few playful pats. Only one came up this time; the other slipped inside his jacket and he felt his chest being caressed. Some indefinable false movement there made him reach inside to put his hand on hers. His wallet was already between her fingers. He yanked it away from her and pushed her back down on the mattress. "Ah!" she cried, very loud. He rose and stumbled noisily through the welter of objects that lay between him and the exit. This time she screamed, briefly. The voices in the other tent became audible. With his wallet still in his hand he rushed out, turned sharply to the left and began to run toward the wall. He fell twice, once against a rock and once because the ground sloped unexpectedly down. As he rose the second time, he saw a man coming from one side to cut him off from the staircase. He was limping, but he was nearly there. He did get there. All the way up the stairs it seemed to him that someone immediately behind him would have hold of one of his legs during the next second. His lungs were an enormous pod of pain, would burst instantly. His mouth was open, drawn down at the sides, his teeth clenched, and the air whistled between them as he drew breath. At the top he turned, and seizing a boulder he could not lift, he did lift it, and hurled it down the staircase. Then he breathed deeply and began to run along the parapet. The sky was palpably lighter, an immaculate gray clarity spreading upward from behind the low hills in the east. He could not run very far. His heart was beating in his head and neck. He knew he never could reach the town. On the side of the road away from the valley there was a wall, too high to be climbed. But a few hundred feet farther on, it had been broken down for a short distance, and a talus of stones and dirt made a perfect stile. He cut back inside the wall in the direction from which he had just come, and hurried panting up a gradual side hill studded with the flat stone beds which are Moslem tombstones. Finally he sat down for a minute, his head in his hands, and was conscious of several things at once: the pain of his head and chest, the fact that he no longer held his wallet, and the loud sound of his own heart, which, however, did not keep him from thinking he heard the excited voices of his pursuers below in the road a moment later. He rose and staggered on upward over the graves. Eventually the hill sloped downward in the other direction. He felt a little safer. But each minute the light of day was nearer; it would be easy to spot his solitary figure from a distance, wandering over the hill. He began to run again, downhill, always in the same direction, staggering now and then, never looking up for fear he should fall; this went on for a long time; the graveyard was left behind. Finally he reached a high spot covered with bushes and cactus, but from which he could dominate the entire immediate countryside. He sat down among the bushes. It was perfectly quiet. The sky was white. Occasionally he stood up carefully and peered out. And so it was that when the sun came up he looked between two oleanders and saw it reflected red across the miles of glittering salt sebkha that lay between him and the mountains. Chapter 6 Kit awoke in a sweat with the hot morning sun pouring over her. She stumbled up, closed the curtains, and fell back into bed. The sheets were wet where she had lain. The thought of breakfast turned her stomach. There were days when from the moment she came out of sleep, she could feel doom hanging over her head like a low rain cloud. Those were difficult days to live through, not so much because of the sensation of suspended disaster of which she was acutely conscious then, but because the customary smooth functioning of her system of omens was wholly upset. If on ordinary days on her way out to

go shopping she turned her ankle or scraped her shin on the furniture, it was easy to conclude that the shopping expedition would be a failure for one reason or another, or that it might be actually dangerous for her to persist in making it. At least on those days she knew a good omen from a bad one. But the other days were treacherous, for the feeling of doom was so strong that it became a hostile consciousness just behind or beside her, foreseeing her attempts to avoid flying in the face of the evil omens, and thus all too able to set traps for her. In this way what at first sight might seem a propitious sign could easily be nothing more than a kind of bait to lure her into danger. Then, too, the turned ankle could be a thing to disregard in such cases, since it had been brought upon her so that she might abandon her intention of going out, and thus might be at home when the furnace boiler exploded, the house caught on fire, or someone she particularly wanted to avoid stopped by to see her. And in her personal life, in her relationships with her friends, these considerations reached monstrous proportions. She was capable of sitting all morning long, attempting to recall the details of a brief scene or conversation, in order to be able to try out in her mind every possible interpretation of each gesture or sentence, each facial expression or vocal inflection, together with their juxtapositions. A great part of her life was dedicated to the categorizing of omens. And so it is not surprising that when she found it impossible to exercise that function, because of her doubt, her ability to go through the motions of everyday existence was reduced to a minimum. It was as if she had been stricken by a strange paralysis. She had no reactions at all; her entire personality withdrew from sight; she had a haunted look. On these days of doom friends who knew her well would say: "Oh, this is one of Kit's days." if on these days she was subdued and seemed most reasonable, it was only because she was imitating mechanically what she considered rational behavior. One reason she had such a strong dislike of hearing dreams recounted was that the telling of them brought straightway to her attention the struggle that raged in her-the war between reason and atavism. In intellectual discussions she was always the proponent of scientific method; at the same time it was inevitable that she should regard the dream as an omen. A further complexity was brought to the situation by the fact that also she lived through still other days when vengeance from above seemed the remotest of possibilities. Every sign was good; an unearthly aura of beneficence glowed from behind each person, object and circumstance. On those days, if she permitted herself to act as she felt, Kit could be quite happy. But of late she had begun to believe that such days, which were rare enough, to be sure, were given her only to throw her off her guard, so that she would not be able to deal with her omens. A natural euphoria was then transformed into a nervous and slightly hysterical peevishness. In conversation repeatedly she would catch herself up, trying to pretend that her remarks had been made in wilful jest, when actually they had been uttered with all the venom of which a foul humor is capable. She was no more disturbed by other people as such, than the marble statue is by the flies that crawl on it; however, as possible harbingers of undesirable events and wielders of unfavorable influence in her own life, she accorded other people supreme importance. She would say: "Other people rule my life," and it was true. But she allowed them to do it only because her superstitious fancy had invested them with magical importance regarding her own destiny, and never because their personalities awoke any profound sympathy or understanding in her. A good part of the night she had lain awake, thinking. Her intuition generally let her know when Port was up to something. She told herself always that it did not matter what he did, but she had repeated the statement so often in her mind that long ago she had become suspicious of its truth. It had not been an easy thing to accept the fact that she did care. Against her will she forced herself to admit that she still belonged to Port, even though he did not come to claim her-and that she still lived in a world illumined by the distant light of a possible miracle: he might yet return to her. It made her feel abject, and therefore, of course, furious with herself to realize that everything depended on him, that she was merely waiting for some unlikely caprice on his part, something which might in some unforeseen manner bring him back. She was far too intelligent to make the slightest effort in that direction herself, even the subtlest means would have failed, and to fail would be far worse than never to have tried. It was merely a question of sitting tight, of being there. Perhaps some day he would see her. But in the meantime so many precious months were going past, unused! Tunner annoyed her because although his presence and his interest in her provided a classical situation which, if exploited, actually might give results where nothing else could, she was for some reason incapable of playing up to him. He bored her; she involuntarily compared him with Port, and always to Port's advantage. As she had been thinking in the night she had tried again and again to direct her fantasies in such a way as to make Tunner an object of excitement. Naturally this had been a failure. Nevertheless she had resolved to attempt the building of a more intimate relationship with him, despite the fact that even as she had made the decision she was quite aware that not only would it be a thoroughly unsavory chore for her, but also that she would be doing it, as she always did everything that required a conscious effort, for Port. There was a knock at the door into the hall. "Oh, God, who is it?" Kit said aloud. "Me." It was Tunner's voice. As usual, he sounded offensively chipper. "Are you awake?" She scrambled about in the bed, making a loud noise that mingled sighs, flapping sheet, and creaking bedspring. "Not very," she groaned, at last. "This is the best time of day. You shouldn't miss it!" he shouted. There was a pointed silence, during which she remembered her resolution. In a martyred voice she called: "Just a minute, Tunner." "Right!" A minute, an hour-he would wait, and show the same good-natured (and false, she thought) smile when he finally was let in. She dashed cold water into her face, rubbed it with a flimsy turkish towel, put on some lipstick and ran a comb through her hair. Suddenly frantic, she began to look about the room for the right bathrobe. Through the partially open door into Port's room she caught sight of his big white terry-cloth robe hanging on the wall. She knocked rapidly on the door as she went in, saw that he was not there, and snatched up the robe. As she pulled the belt about her waist in front of her mirror she reflected with satisfaction that no one ever could accuse her of coquetry in having chosen this particular garment. It came to the floor on her, and she had to roll the sleeves back twice to uncover her hands. She opened the door. "Hi" There was the smile. "Hello, Tunner," she said apathetically. "Come in." He rumpled her hair with his left hand as he walked past her on his way to the window, where he pulled the curtains aside. "You holding a s~ance in here? Ah, now I can see you." The sharp morning light filled the room, the polished floor-tiles reflecting the sun on the ceiling as if they had been water. "How are you?" she said vacantly as she stood beside the mirror again, combing her hair where he had tousled it. "Wonderful." He beamed at her image in the mirror, making his eyes sparkle, and even, she noted with great distaste, moving a certain facial muscle that emphasized the dimples in his cheeks. "He's such a fake," she thought. "What in God's name's he doing here with us? Of course, it's Port's fault. He's the one who encouraged him to drag along." "What happened to Port last night?" Tunner was saying. "I sort of waited up for him, but he didn't show up." Kit looked at him. "Waited for up him?" she repeated, incredulous. "Well, we more or less had a date at our cafe, you know the one. For a nightcap. But no hide, no hair. I got in bed and read until pretty late. He hadn't come in by three." This was completely false. Actually Tunner had said: "If you go out, look into the Eckmiihl; I'll probably be in there." He had gone out shortly after Port, had picked up a French girl and stayed with her at her hotel until five. When he had come back at dawn he had managed to look through the low glass transoms into their rooms, and had seen the empty bed in one and Kit asleep in the other. "Really?" she said, turning back to the mirror. "He can't have had much sleep, then, because he's already gone out." "You mean he hasn't come in yet," said Tunner, staring at her intently. She did not answer. "Will you push that button there, please?" she said presently. "I think I'll have a cup of their chicory and one of those plaster croissants." When she thought enough time had passed, she wandered into Port's room and glanced at the bed. It had been turned down for the night and not touched since. Without knowing precisely why, she pulled the sheet all the way down and sat on the bed for a moment, pushing dents in the pillows with her hands. Then she unfolded the laid-out pajamas and dropped them in a heap at the foot. The servant knocked at her door; she went back into her room and ordered breakfast. When the servant had left she shut the door and sat in the armchair by the window, not looking out. "You know, Tunner said musingly, "I've thought a lot about it lately. You're a very curious person. It's hard to understand you." Kit clicked her tongue with exasperation. "Oh, Tunnet! Stop trying to be interesting." Immediately she blamed herself for showing her impatience, and added, smiling: "On you it looks terrible." His hurt expression quickly changed into a grin. "No, I mean it. You're a fascinating case." She pursed her lips angrily; she was furious, not so much because of what he was saying, although she considered it all idiotic, but because the idea of having to converse with him at all right now seemed almost more than she could bear. "Probably," she said. Breakfast arrived. He sat with her while she drank her coffee and ate her croissant. Her eyes had assumed a dreamy expression, and he had the feeling that she had completely forgotten his presence. When she had nearly finished her breakfast, she turned to him and said politely: "Will you excuse me if I eat?" He began to laugh. She looked startled. "Hurry up!" he said. "I want to take you out for a walk before it gets too hot. You had a lot of stuff on your list anyway." "Oh!" she moaned. "I don't feel-" But he cut her short. "Come on, come on. You dress. I'll wait in Port's room. I'll even shut the door." She could think of nothing to say. Port never gave her orders; he hung back, hoping thereby to discover what she really wanted. He made it more difficult for her, since she seldom acted on her own desires, behaving instead according to her complex system of balancing those omens to be observed against those to be disregarded. Tunner had already gone into the adjacent room and closed the door. It gratified Kit to think that he would see the disheveled bedclothes. As she dressed she heard him whistling. "A bore, a bore, a bore!" she said under her breath. At that

moment the other door opened; Port stood there in the hall, running his left hand through his hair. "May I come in?" he asked. She was staring at him. "Well, obviously. What's the matter with you?" He still stood there. "What in God's name's wrong with you?" she said impatiently. "Nothing." His voice rasped. He strode to the center of the room and pointed to the closed connecting door. "Who's in there?" "Tunner," she said with unfeigned innocence, as if it were a most natural occurrence. "He's waiting for me while I get dressed." "What the hell goes on here?" Kit flushed and turned away vehemently. "Nothing. Nothing," she said quickly. "Don't be crazy. What do you think goes on, anyway?" He did not lower his voice. "I don't know. I'm asking you. She pushed him in the chest with her outspread hands and walked toward the door to open it, but he caught her arm and pulled her around. "Please stop it!" she whispered furiously. "All right, all right. I'll open the door myself," he said, as if by allowing her to do it he might be running too great a risk. He went into his room. Tunner was leaning out the window looking down. He swung around, smiling broadly. "Well, well!" he began. Port was staring at the bed. "What is this? What's the matter with your room that you have to be in here?" he demanded. But Tunner appeared not to take in the situation at all, or else he refused to admit that there was any. "So! Back from the wars!" he cried. "And do you look it! Kit and I are going for a walk. You probably want some sleep." He dragged Port over in front of the mirror. "Look at yourself!" he commanded. At the sight of his smeared face and red-rimmed eyes, Port wilted. "I want some black coffee," he grumbled. "And I want to go down and get a shave." Now he raised his voice. "And I wish to hell you'd both get out of here and take your walk." He pushed the wall button savagely. Tunner gave him a fraternal pat on the back. "See you later, old man. Get some sleep." Port glared at him as he went out, and sat down on the bed when he had gone. A large ship had just steamed into the harbor; its deep whistle sounded below the street noises. He lay back on the bed, gasping a little. When the knocking came at the door, he never heard it. The servant stuck his head in, said: "Monsieur," waited a few seconds, quietly shut the door and went away. Chapter 7 He slept all day. Kit came back at lunch time; she went in softly, and having coughed once to see if he would wake, went to eat without him. Before twilight he awoke, feeling greatly cleansed. He rose and undressed slowly. In the bathroom he drew a hot tub, bathed at length, shaved, and searched for his white bathrobe. He found it in Kit's room, but she was not there. On her table was a variety of groceries she had bought to take on the trip. Most of the items were black-market goods from England, and according to the labels they had been manufactured by appointment to H.M. King George VI. He opened a package of biscuits and began to eat one after another, voraciously. Framed by the window, the town below was growing dim. It was that moment of twilight when light objects seem unnaturally bright, and the others are restfully dark. The town's electricity had not yet been turned on, so that the only lights were those on the few ships anchored in the harbor, itself neither light nor dark-merely an empty area between the buildings and the sky. And to the right were the mountains. The first one coming up out of the sea looked to him like two knees drawn up under a huge sheet. For a fraction of a second, but with such force that he felt the change's impact as a physical sensation, he was somewhere else, it was long ago. Then he saw the mountains again. He wandered downstairs. They had made a point of not patronizing the hotel bar because it was always empty. Now, going into the gloomy little room, Port was mildly surprised to see sitting alone at the bar a heavy-looking youth with a formless face which was saved from complete non-existence by an undefined brown beard. As he installed himself at the other end, the young man said with a heavy English accent: "Otro Tio Pepe, " and pushed his glass toward the barman. Port thought of the cool subterranean bodegas at Jerez where Tio Pepe of 1842 had been tendered him, and ordered the same. The young man looked at him with a certain curiosity in his eyes, but said nothing. Presently a large, sallow-skinned woman, her hair fiery with henna, appeared in the doorway and squealed. She had the glassy black eyes of a doll; their lack of expression was accentuated by the gleaming make-up around them. The young man turned in her direction. "Hello, Mother. Come in and sit down." The woman moved to the youth's side but did not sit. In her excitement and indignation she seemed not to have noticed Port. Her voice was very high. "Eric, you filthy toad!" she cried. "Do you realize I've been looking for you everywhere? I've never seen such behavior! And what are you drinking? What do you mean by drinking, after what Doctor Levy told you? You wretched, boy!" The young man did not look at her. "Don't scream so, Mother." She glanced in Port's direction, saw him. "What is that you're drinking, Eric?" she demanded again, her voice slightly more subdued, but no less intense. "It's just sherry, and it's quite delightful. I wish you wouldn't get so upset." "And who do you think's going to pay for your caprices?" She seated herself on the stool beside him and began to fumble in her bag. "Oh, blast! I've come off without my key," she said. "Thanks to your thoughtlessness. You'll have to let me in through your room. I've discovered the sweetest mosque, but it's covered with brats all shrieking like demons. Filthy little beasts, they are! I'll show it to you tomorrow. Order a glass of sherry for me, if it's dry. I think it might help me. I've felt wretched all day. I'm positive it's the malaria coming back. It's about time for it, you know." "Otro Tio Pepe, " said the youth imperturbably. Port watched, fascinated as always by the sight of a human being brought down to the importance of an automaton or a caricature. By whatever circumstances and in whatever manner reduced, whether ludicrous or horrible, such persons delighted him. The dining room was unfriendly and formal to a degree which is acceptable only when the service is impeccable; this was not the case here. The waiters were impassive and moved slowly. They seemed to have difficulty in understanding the wants even of the French; certainly they showed no sign of interest in pleasing anyone. The two English people were given a table near the corner where Port and Kit were eating; Tunner was out with his French girl. "Here they are," whispered Port. "Keep an ear open. But try and keep a straight face." "He looks like a young Vacher," said Kit, leaning far over the table, "the one who wandered across France slicing children into pieces, you remember?" They were silent a few minutes, hoping to be diverted by the other table, but mother and son appeared to have nothing to say to each other. Finally Port turned to Kit and said: "Oh, while I think of it, what was all that this morning? " "Do we have to go into it now?" "No, but I was just asking. I thought maybe you could answer." "You saw all there was to see." "I wouldn't ask you if I thought so." "Oh, can't you see--" Kit began in a tone of exasperation; then she stopped. She was about to say: "Can't you see that I didn't want Tunner to know you hadn't come back last night? Can't you see he'd be interested to know that? Can't you see it would give him just the wedge he's looking for?" Instead she said: "Do we have to discuss it? I told you the whole story when you came in. He came while I was having breakfast and I sent him into your room to wait while I got dressed. Isn't that perfectly proper?" "It depends on your conception of propriety, baby." "It certainly does," she said acidly. "You notice I haven't mentioned what you did last night." Port smiled and said smoothly: "You couldn't very well, since you don't know." "And I don't want to." She was letting her anger show in spite of herself. "You can think whatever you want to think. I don't give a damn." She glanced over at the other table and noticed that the large bright eyed woman was following what she could of their conversation with acute interest. When that lady saw that Kit was aware of her attention, she turned back to the youth and began a loud monologue of her own. "This hotel has the most extraordinary plumbing system; the water taps do nothing but sigh and gurgle constantly, no matter how tightly one shuts them off. The stupidity of the French! It's unbelievable! They're all mental defectives. Madame Gautier herself told me they have the lowest national intelligence quotient in the world. Of course, their blood is thin; they've gone to seed. They're all part Jewish or Negro. Look at them!" She made a wide gesture which included the whole room. "Oh, here, perhaps," said the young man, holding his g lass of water up to the light and studying it carefully. "In France!" the woman cried excitedly. "Madame Gautier told me herself, and I've read it in ever so many books and papers." "What revolting water," he murmured. He set the glass on the table. "I don't think I shall drink it." "What a fearful sissy you are! Stop complaining! I don't want to hear about it! I can't bear to hear any more of your talk about dirt and worms. Don't drink it. No one cares whether you do or not. It's frightful for you, anyway, washing everything down with liquids the way you do. Try to grow up. Have you got the paraffin for the Primus, or did you forget that as well as the Vittel?" The young man smiled with poisonous mock benevolence, and spoke slowly, as if to a backward child: "No, I did not forget the paraffin as well as the Vittel. The tin is in the back of the car. Now, if I may, I think I shall take a little walk." He rose, still smiling most unpleasantly, and moved away from the table. "Why, you rude puppy! I'll box your ears!" the woman called after him. He did not turn around. "Aren't they something?" whispered Port. "Very amusing," said Kit. She was still angry. "Why don't you ask them to join us on our great trek? It's all we'd need." They ate their fruit,in silence. After dinner, when Kit had gone up to her room, Port wandered around the barren street floor of the hotel, to the writing room with its impossible, dim lights far overhead; to the palm-stuffed foyer where two ancient French women in black sat on the edges of their chairs, whispering to one another; to the front entrance, in which he stood a few minutes staring at a large Mercedes touring car parked opposite; and back to the writing room. He sat down. The sickly light from above scarcely illumined the travel posters on the walls: Fes la Mysterieuse, Air-France, Visitez I'Espagne. From a grilled window over his head came hard female voices and the metallic sound of kitchen activities, amplified by the stone walls

and tile floors. This room, even more than the others, reminded him of a dungeon. The electric bell of the cinema was audible above all the other noises, a constant, nerveracking background. He went to the writing tables, lifted the blotters, opened the drawers, searching for stationery; there was none. Then he shook the inkwells; they were dry. A violent argument had broken out in the kitchen. Scratching the fleshy parts of his hands, where the mosquitoes had just bitten him, he walked slowly out of the room through the foyer, along the corridor into the bar. Even here the light was weak and distant, but the array of bottles behind the bar formed a focal point of interest for the eyes. He had a slight indigestion-not a sourness, but the promise of a pain which at the moment was only a tiny physical unhappiness in some unlocatable center. The swarthy barman was staring at him expectantly. There was no one else in the room. He ordered a whiskey and sat savoring it, drinking slowly. Somewhere in the hotel a toilet was flushed, making its sounds of choking and regurgitation. The unpleasant tension inside him was lessening; he felt very much awake. The bar was stuffy and melancholy. It was full of the sadness inherent in all deracinated things. "Since the day the first drink was served at this bar," he thought, "how many moments of happiness have been lived through, here?" The happiness, if there still was any, existed elsewhere: In sequestered rooms that looked onto bright alleys where the cats gnawed fishheads; in shaded cafes hung with reed matting, where the hashish smoke mingled with the fumes of mint from the hot tea; down on the docks, out at the edge of the sebkha in the tents (he passed over the white image of Marhnia, the placid face); beyond the mountains in the great Sahara, in the endless regions that were all of Africa. But not here in this sad colonial room where each invocation of Europe was merely one more squalid touch, one more visible proof of isolation; the mother country seemed farthest in such a room. As he sat regularly swallowing small mouthfuls of warm whiskey, he heard footsteps approaching in the corridor. The young Englishman came into the room, and without looking in Port's direction sat down at one of the small tables. Port watched him order a liqueur, and when the barman was back behind the bar, he walked over to the table. "Pardon, monsieur," he said. "Vous parlezfranvais?" "Oui, oui," the young man answered, looking startled. "But you also speak English?" pursued Port quickly. "I do," he replied, setting his glass down and staring at his interlocutor in a manner which Port suspected was completely theatrical. His intuition told him that flattery was the surest approach in this case. "Then maybe you can give me some advice," he went on with great seriousness. The young man smiled weakly. "If it's about Africa, I daresay I can. I've been mucking about here for the past five years. Fascinating place, of course." "Wonderful, yes." "You know it?" He looked a bit worried; he wanted so much to be the only traveler. "Only certain parts," Port reassured him. "I've traveled a good deal in the north and west. Roughly Tripoli to Dakar." "Dakar's a filthy hole." "But so are ports all over the world, What I wanted advice about is the exchange. What bank do you think it's best to use? I have dollars." The Englishman smiled. "I think I'm rather a good person to give you such information. I'm actually Australian myself, but my mother and I live mostly on American dollars." He proceeded to offer Port a complete exposition of the French banking system in North Africa. His voice took on the inflections of an old-fashioned professor; his manner of expressing himself was objectionably pedantic, Port thought. At the same time there was a light in his eyes which not only belied the voice and manner but also managed to annul whatever weight his words might carry. It seemed to Port that the young man was speaking to him rather as if he thought he were dealing with a maniac, as if the subject of conversation had been chosen as one proper to the occasion, one which could be extended for as long a time as necessary, until the patient was calmed. Port allowed him to continue his discourse, which presently left banking behind and went into personal experiences. This terrain was more fertile; it obviously was where the young man had been heading from the start. Port offered no comments, save for an occasional polite exclamation which helped to give the monologue the semblance of a conversation. He learned that prior to their arrival in Mombasa the young man and his mother, who wrote travel books and illustrated them with her own photographs, had lived for three years in India, where an elder son had died; that the five African years, spent in every part of the continent, had managed to give them both an astonishing list of diseases, and they still suffered intermittently from most of them. It was difficult, however, to know what to believe and what to discount, since the report was decorated with such remarks as: "At that time I was manager of a large import-export firm in Durban," "The government put me in charge of three thousand Zulus," "In Lagos I bought a command car and drove it through to Casamance," "We were the only whites ever to have penetrated into the region," "They wanted me to be cameraman for the expedition, but there was no one in Cape Town I could trust to keep the studios running properly, and we were making four films at the time." Port began to resent his not knowing better how far to go with his listener, but he let it all pass, and was delighted with the ghoulish pleasure the young man took in describing the dead bodies in the river at Douala, the murders in Takoradi, the self-immolating madman in the market at Gao. Finally the talker leaned back, signaled to the barman to bring him another liqueur, and said: "Ah, yes, Africa's a great place. I wouldn't live anywhere else these days." "And your mother? Does she feel the same way?" "Oh, she's in love with it. She wouldn't know what to do if you put her down in a civilized country." "She writes all the time?" "All the time. Every day. Mostly about out-of-the-way places. We're about to go down to Fort Charlet. Do you know it?" He seemed reasonably sure that Port would not know Fort Charlet. "No, I don't," said Port. "But I know where it is. How're you going to get there? There's no service of any kind, is there?" "Oh, we'll get there. The Touareg will be just Mother's meat. I have a great collection of maps, military and otherwise, which I study carefully each morning before we set out. Then I simply follow them. We have a car," he added, seeing Port's look of bewilderment. "An ancient Mercedes. Powerful old thing." "Ah, yes, I saw it outside," murmured Port. "Yes," said the young man smugly. "We always get there." "Your mother must be a very interesting woman," said Port. The young man was enthusiastic. "Absolutely amazing. You must meet her tomorrow." "I should like very much to." "I've packed her off to bed, but she won't sleep until I get in. We always have communicating rooms, of course, so that unfortunately she knows just when I go to bed. Isn't married life wonderful?" Port glanced at him quickly, a little shocked at the crudity of his remark, but he was laughing in an open and unaware fashion. "Yes, you'll enjoy talking with her. Unluckily we have an itinerary which we try to follow exactly. We're leaving tomorrow noon. When are you pulling out of this bellhole?� "Oh, we've been planning to get the train tomorrow for Bousif, but we're not in any hurry. So we may wait until Thursday. The only way to travel, at least for us, is to go when you feel like going and stay where you feel like staying." "I quite agree. But surely you don't feel like staying here?" "Oh God, no!" laughed Port. "We hate it. But there are three of us, and we just haven't all managed to get up the necessary energy at one time." "Three of you? I see." The young man appeared to be considering this unexpected news. "I see." He rose and reached in his pocket, pulling out a card which he handed to Port. "I might give you this. My name is Lyle. Well, cheer-o, and I hope you work up the initiative. May see you in the morning." He spun around as if in embarrassment, and walked stiffly out of the room. Port slipped the card into his pocket. The barman was asleep, his head on the bar. Deciding to have a last drink, he went over and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. The man raised his head with a groan. Chapter 8 Where have you been?" said Kit. She was sitting up in bed reading, having dragged the little lamp to the very edge of the night-table. Port moved the table against the bed and pushed the lamp back to a safe distance from the edge. "Guzzling down in the bar. I have a feeling we're going to be invited to drive to Boussif." Kit looked up, delighted. She hated trains. "Oh, no! Really? How marvelous!" "But wait'll you hear by whom!" "Oh God! Not those monsters!" "They haven't said anything. I just have a feeling they will." "Oh well, that's absolutely out, of course." Port went into his room. "I wouldn't worry about it either way. Nobody's said anything. I got a long story from the son. He's a mental case." "You know I'll worry about it. You know how I hate train rides. And you come in calmly and say we may have an invitation to go in a car! You might at least have waited till morning and let me have a decent night's sleep before having to make up my mind which of the two tortures I want." "Why don't you begin your worrying once we've been asked?" "Oh, don't be ridiculous!" she cried, jumping out of bed. She stood in the doorway, watching him undress. "Good night," she said suddenly, and shut the door. Things came about somewhat as Port had imagined they would. In the morning, as he was standing in the window wondering at the first clouds he had seen since mid-Atlantic, a knock came at the door; it was Eric Lyle, his face suffused and puffy from having just awakened. "Good morning. I say, do forgive me if I've awakened you, but I've something rather important to talk about. May I come in?" He glanced about the room in a strangely surreptitious manner, his pale eyes darting swiftly from object to object. Port had the uncomfortable feeling that he should have put things away and closed all his luggage before letting him in. "Have you had tea?" said Lyle. "Yes, only it was coffee." "Aha!" He edged nearer to a valise, toyed with the straps. "You have some nice labels on your bags." He lifted the leather tag with Port's name and address on it. "Now I see your name. Mr. Porter Moresby." He crossed the room. "You must forgive me if I snoop. Luggage always fascinates me. May I sit down? Now, look, Mr. Moresby. That is you, isn't it? I've been talking at some length with Mother and she agrees with me that it would be much pleasanter for you and Mrs. Moresby-I suppose that's the lady you were with last night-" he

paused. "Yes," said Port. "--if you both came along with us to Boussif. It's only five hours by car, and the train ride takes ages; something like eleven hours, if I remember. And eleven hours of utter hell. Since the war the trains are completely impossible, you know. We think-" Port interrupted him. "No, no. We couldn't put you out to that extent. No, no." "Yes, yes," said Lyle archly. "Besides, we're three, you know." "Ah, yes, of course, said Lyle in a vague voice. "Your friend couldn't come along on the train, I suppose?" "I don't think he'd be very happy with the arrangement. Anyway, we couldn't very well go off and leave him." "I see. That's a shame. We can scarcely take him along, with all the luggage there'd be, you know." He rose, looked at Port with his head on one side like a bird listening for a worm, and said: "Come along with us; do. You can manage it, I know." He went to the door, opened it, and leaned through toward Port, standing on tiptoe. "I'll tell you what. You come by and let me know in an hour. Fifty-three. And I do hope your decision is favorable." Smiling, and letting his gaze wander once more around the room, he shut the door. Kit literally had not slept at all during the night; at daybreak she had dozed off, but her sleep was troubled. She was not in a receptive mood when Port rapped loudly on the communicating door and opened it immediately afterward. Straightway she sat up, holding the sheet high around her neck with her hand, and staring wildly. She relaxed and fell back. "What is it?" "I've got to talk to you." "I'm so sleepy." "We have the invitation to drive to Boussif." Again she bobbed up, this time rubbing her eyes. He sat on the bed and kissed her shoulder absently. She drew back and looked at him. "From the monsters? Have you accepted?" He wanted to say "Yes," because that would have avoided a long discussion; the matter would have been settled for her as well as for him. "Not yet." "Oh, you'll have to refuse." "Why? It'll be much more comfortable. And quicker. And certainly safer." "Are you trying to terrify me so I won't budge out of the hotel?" She looked toward the window. "Why is it so dark out still? What time is it?" "It's cloudy today for some strange reason." She was silent; the haunted look came into her eyes. "They won't take Tunner," said Port. "Are you stark, raving mad?" she cried. "I wouldn't dream of going without him. Not for a second!" "Why not?" said Port, nettled. "He could get there all right on the train. I don't know why we should lose a good ride just because he happens to be along. We don't have to stick with him every damned minute, do we?" "You don't have to; no." "You mean you do?" "I mean I wouldn't consider leaving Tunner here and going off in a car with those two. She's an hysterical old hag, and the boy-! He's a real criminal degenerate if I ever saw one. He gives me the creeps." "Oh, come on!" scoffed Port. "You dare use the word hysterical. My God! I wish you could see yourself this minute." "You do exactly what you like," said Kit, lying back. "I'll go on the train with Tunner." Port's eyes narrowed. "Well, by God, you can go on the train with him, then. And I hope there's a wreck!" He went into his room and dressed. Kit rapped on the door. "Entrez," said Tunner with his American accent. "Well, well, this is a surprise! What's up? To what do I owe this unexpected visit?" "Oh, nothing in particular," she said, surveying him with a vague distaste which she hoped she managed to conceal. "You and I've got to go alone to Boussif on the train. Port has an invitation to drive there with some friends." She tried to keep her voice wholly inexpressive. He looked mystified. "What's all this? Say it again slowly. Friends?" "That's right. Some English woman and her son. They've asked him." Little by little his face began to beam. This was not false now, she noted. He was just incredibly slow in reacting. "Well, well!" he said again, grinning. "What a dolt he is," she thought, observing the utter lack of inhibition in his behavior. (The blatantly normal always infuriated her.) "His emotional maneuvers all take place out in the open. Not a tree or a rock to hide behind." Aloud she said: "The train leaves at six and gets there at some God-forsaken hour of the morning. But they say it's always late, and that's good, for once." "So we'll just go together, the two of us." "Port'll be there long before, so he can get rooms for us. I've got to go now and find a beauty parlor, God forbid." "What do you need of that?" protested Tunner. "Let well enough alone. You can't improve on nature." She had no patience with gallantry; nevertheless she smiled at him as she went out. "Because I'm a coward," she thought. She was quite conscious of a desire to pit Tunner's magic against Port's, since Port had put a curse on the trip. And as she smiled she said, as if to nobody: "I think we can avoid the wreck." "Huh?� "Oh, nothing, I'll see you for lunch in the dining room at two. " Tunner was the sort of person to whom it would occur only with difficulty that he might be being used. Because he was accustomed to imposing his will without meeting opposition, he had a highly developed and very male vanity which endeared him, strangely enough, to almost everyone. Doubtless the principal reason why he had been so eager to accompany Port and Kit on this trip was that with them as with no one else he felt a definite resistance to his unceasing attempts at moral domination, at which he was forced, when with them, to work much harder; thus unconsciously he was giving his personality the exercise it required. Kit and Port, on the other hand, both resented even the reduced degree to which they responded to his somewhat obvious charm, which was why neither one would admit to having encouraged him to come along with them. There was no small amount of shame involved where they were concerned, since both of them were conscious of all the acting and formula-following in his behavior, and yet to a certain degree both were willingly ensnared by it. Tunner himself was an essentially simple individual irresistibly attracted by whatever remained just beyond his intellectual grasp. Contenting himself with not quite being able to seize an idea was a habit he had acquired in adolescence, and it operated in him now with still greater force. If he could get on all sides of a thought, he concluded that it was an inferior one; there had to be an inaccessible part of it for his interest to be aroused. His attention, however, did not spur him to additional thought. On the contrary, it merely provided him with an emotional satisfaction vis-a-vis the idea, making it possible for him to relax and admire it at a distance. At the beginning of his friendship with Port and Kit he had been inclined to treat them with the careful deference he felt was due them, not as individuals, but as beings who dealt almost exclusively with ideas, sacred things. Their discouraging of this tactic had been so categorical that he had been obliged to adopt a new one, in using which he felt even less sure of himself. This consisted of gentle prods, ridicule so faint and unfocused that it always could be given a flattering turn if necessary, and the adoption of an attitude of amused, if slightly pained resignation, that made him feel like the father of a pair of impossibly spoiled prodigies. Light-hearted now, he moved about the room whistling at the prospect of being alone with Kit; he had decided she needed him. He was not at all sure of being able to convince her that the need lay precisely in the field where he liked to think it did. Indeed, of all the women with whom he hoped some day to have intimate relations he considered Kit the most unlikely, the most difficult. He caught a glimpse of himself as he stood bent over a suitcase, and smiled inscrutably at his image; it was the same smile that Kit thought so false. At one o'clock he went to Port's room to find the door open and the luggage gone. Two maids were making the bed up with fresh linen. "Se ha marchao," said one. At two he met Kit in the dining room; she was looking exceptionally well groomed and pretty. He ordered champagne. "At a thousand francs a bottle!" she remonstrated. "Port would have a fit!" "Port isn't here," said Tunner. Chapter 9 A few minutes before twelve Port stood outside the entrance of the hotel with all his luggage. Three Arab porters, acting under the direction of young Lyle, were piling bags into the back of the car. The slow moving clouds above were interspersed now with great holes of deep blue sky; when the sun came through its heat was unexpectedly powerful. In the direction of the mountains the sky was still black and frowning. Port was impatient; he hoped they would get off before Kit or Tunner happened by. Precisely at twelve Mrs. Lyle was in the lobby complaining about her bill. The pitch of her voice rose and fell in sharp scallops of sound. Coming to the doorway she cried: "Eric, will you come in here and tell this man I did not have biscuits yesterday at tea? Immediately!" "Tell him yourself," said Eric absently. "Celle-la on va mettre ici en bas, " he went on to one of the Arabs, indicating a heavy pigskin case. "You idiot!" She went back in; a moment later Port heard her squealing: "Non! Non! The seulement! Pas gateau!" Eventually she appeared again, red in the face, her handbag swinging on her arm. Seeing Port she stood still and called: "Eric!" He looked up from the car, came over and presented Port to his mother. "I'm very glad you can come with us. It's an added protection. They say in the mountains here it's better to carry a gun. Although I must say I've never seen an Arab I couldn't handle. It's the beastly French one really needs protection from. Filthy lot! Fancy their telling me what I had yesterday for tea. But the insolence! Eric, you coward! You let me do all the fighting at the desk. You probably ate the biscuits they were charging me for!" "It's all one, isn't it?" Eric smiled. "I should think you'd be ashamed to admit it. Mr. Moresby, look at that hulking boy. He's never done a day's work in his life. I have to pay all his bills." "Come on, Mother! Get in." This was said despairingly "What do you mean, get in?" Her voice went very high. "Fancy talking to me like that! You need a good slap in the face. That might help you." She climbed into the front of the car. "I've never had such talk from anyone." "We shall all three sit in front," said Eric. "Do you mind, Mr. Moresby?" "I'm delighted. I prefer the front," said Port. He was determined to remain wholly on the periphery of this family pattern; the best way of assuring that, he thought, would be to have no visible personality whatever, merely to be civil, to listen. It was likely that this ludicrous wrangling was the only form of conversation these two had ever managed to devise for themselves. They started up, Eric at the wheel, racing the motor first. The porters shouted: "Bon voyage!" "I noticed several people staring at me when I left," said Mrs. Lyle, settling back. "Those filthy Arabs have

done their work here, the same as everywhere else." "Work? What do you mean?" said Port. "Why, their spying. They spy on you all the time here, you know. That's the way they make their living. You think you can do anything without their knowing it?" She laughed unpleasantly. "Within an hour all the miserable little touts and undersecretaries at the consulates know everything." "You mean the British Consulate?" "All the consulates, the police, the banks, everyone," she said firmly. Port looked at Eric expectantly. "But--" "Oh, yes," said Eric, apparently happy to reinforce his mother's statement. "It's a frightful mess. We never have a moment's peace. Wherever we go, they hold back our letters, they try to keep us out of hotels by saying they have no rooms, and when we do get rooms they search them while we're out and steal our things, they get the porters and chambermaids to eavesdrop--" "But who? Who does all this? And why?" "The Arabs!" cried Mrs. Lyle. "They're a stinking, low race of people with nothing to do in life but spy on others. How else do you think they live?" "It seems incredible," Port ventured timidly, hoping in this way to call forth more of the same, for it amused him. "Hah!" she said in a tone of triumph. "It may seem incredible to you because you don't know them, but look out for them. They hate us all. And so do the French. Oh, they loathe us!" "I've always found the Arabs very sympathetic," said Port. "Of course. That's because they're servile, they flatter you and fawn on you. And the moment your back is turned, off they rush to the consulate." Said Eric: "Once in Mogador--" His mother cut him short. "Oh, shut up! Let someone else talk. Do you think anyone wants to hear about your blundering stupidities? If you'd had a little sense you'd not have got into that business. What right did you have to go to Mogador, when I was dying in Fez? Mr. Moresby, I was dying! In the hospital, on my back, with a terrible Arab nurse who couldn't even give a proper injection--" "She could!" said Eric stoutly. "She gave me at least twenty. You just happened to get infected because your resistance was low." "Resistance!" shrieked Mrs. Lyle. "I refuse to talk any more. Look, Mr. Moresby, at the colors of the hills. Have you ever tried infra-red on landscapes? I took some exceptionally fine ones in Rhodesia, but they were stolen from me by an editor in Johannesburg." "Mr. Moresby's not a photographer, Mother." "Oh, be quiet. Would that keep him from knowing about infra-red photography?" "I've seen samples of it," said Port. "Well, of course you have. You see, Eric, you simply don't know what you're saying, ever. It all comes from lack of discipline. I only wish you had to earn your living for one day. It would teach you to think before you speak. At this point you're no better than an imbecile." A particularly arid argument ensued, in which Eric, apparently for Port's benefit, enumerated a list of unlikely sounding jobs he claimed to have held during the past four years, while the mother systematically challenged each item with what seemed convincing proof of its falsity. At each new claim she cried: "What lies! What a liar! You don't even know what the truth is!" Finally Eric replied in an aggrieved tone, as if capitulating: "You'd never let me stick at any work, anyway. You're terrified that I might become independent." Mrs. Lyle cried: "Look, look! Mr. Moresby! That sweet burro! It reminds me of Spain. We just spent two months there. It's a horrible country," (she pronounced it hawibble) "all soldiers and priests and Jews." "Jews?" echoed Port incredulously. "Of course. Didn't you know? The hotels are full of them. They run the country. From behind the scenes, of course. The same as everywhere else. Only in Spain they're very clever about it. They will not admit to being Jewish. In Cordoba-this will show you how wily and deceitful they are. In Cordoba I went through a street called Juderia. It's where the synagogue is. Naturally it's positively teeming with Jews--a typical ghetto. But do you think one of them would admit it? Certainly not! They all shook their fingers back and forth in front of my face, and shouted: 'Catolico! Catohco!' at me. But fancy that, Mr. Moresby, their claiming to be Roman Catholics. And when I went through the synagogue the guide kept insisting that no services had been held in it since the fifteenth century! I'm afraid I was dreadfully rude to him. I burst out laughing in his face." "What did he say?" Port inquired. "Oh, he merely went on with his lecture. He'd learned it by rote, of course. He did stare. They all do. But I think he respected me for not being afraid. The' ruder you are to them the more they admire you. I showed him I knew he was telling me the most fearful lot of lies. Catholics! I daresay they think that makes them superior. It was too funny, when they were all most Jewy; one had only to look at them. Oh, I know Jews. I've had too many vile experiences with them not to know them." The novelty of the caricature was wearing off. Port was beginning to feel smothered sitting there between them; their obsessions depressed him. Mrs. Lyle was even more objectionable than her son. Unlike him, she had no exploits, imaginary or real, to recount; her entire conversation consisted of descriptions in detail of the persecutions to which she believed she had been subjected, and of word-byword accounts of the bitter quarrels in which she had been engaged with those who harassed her. As she spoke, her character took shape before him, although already he was far less inclined to be interested in it. Her life had been devoid of personal contacts, and she needed them. Thus she manufactured them as best she could; each fight was an abortive attempt at establishing some kind of human relationship. Even with Eric, she had come to accept the dispute as the natural mode of talking. He decided that she was the loneliest woman he had ever seen, but he could not care very much. He ceased listening. They had left the town, traversed the valley, and were climbing a large, bare hill on the other side. As they swung around one of the many S-curves, he realized with a start that he was looking straight at the Turkish fortress, small and perfect as a toy at this distance, on the opposite side of the valley. Under the wall, scattered about on the yellow earth, were several tiny black tents; which one he had been in, which one was Marhnia's, he could not say, for the staircase was not visible from here. And there she was, doubtless, somewhere below in the valley, having her noonday sleep in the airless heat of a tent, alone or with a lucky Arab friend-not Smail, he thought. They turned again, mounting ever higher; there were cliffs above them. By the road sometimes were high clumps of dead thistle plants, coated with white dust, and from the plants the locusts called, a high, unceasing scream like the sound of heat itself. Again and again the valley came into view, always a little smaller, a little farther away, a little less real. The Mercedes roared like a plane; there was no muffler on the exhaust pipe. The mountains were there ahead, the sebkha was spread out below. He turned to get a last look at the valley; the shape of each tent was still discernible, and he realized that the tents looked like the mountain peaks behind them on the horizon. As he watched the heat-covered landscape unfold, his thoughts took an inward turn, dwelt briefly on the dream that still preoccupied him. At the end of a moment, he smiled; now he had it. The train that went always faster was merely an epitome of life itself. The unsureness about the no and theyes was the inevitable attitude one had if one tried to consider the value of that life, and the hesitation was automatically resolved by one's involuntary decision to refuse participation in it. He wondered why it had upset him; it was a simple, classic dream. The connections were all clear in his head. Their particular meaning with regard to his own life scarcely mattered. For in order to avoid having to deal with relative values, he had long since come to deny all purpose to the phenomenon of existence-it was more expedient and comforting. He was pleased to have solved his little problem. He looked around the countryside; they were still climbing, but they had gone over the first crest. About them now were barren, rounded hills, without details to give them scale. And on every side was the same uneven, hard line of the horizon, with the blinding white sky behind. Mrs. Lyle was saying: "Oh, they're a foul tribe. A rotten lot, I can tell you." "I'll kill this woman yet," he thought savagely. As the gradient lessened and the car added speed, the fleeting illusion of a breeze"was created, but when the road curved upward again and they resumed the slow ascent, he realized that the air was motionless. "There's a sort of belvedere up ahead, according to the map," said Eric. "We ought to have a superb view." "Do you think we should stop?" Mrs. Lyle inquired anxiously. "We must be at Boussif for tea." The vantage point proved to be a slightly perceptible widening of the road at a spot where the latter made a hairpin curve. Some boulders which had rolled down from the cliff on the inner side made the passage even more hazardous. The drop from the edge was sheer, and the view inland was spectacular and hostile. Eric stopped the car for a moment, but no one got out. The rest of the drive was through stony territory, too parched to shelter even the locusts, yet now and then Port caught a glimpse in the distance of a mudwalled hamlet, the color of the hills, fenced round about with cactus and thorny shrubs. A silence fell upon the three, and there was nothing to hear but the steady roaring of the motor. When they came in sight of Boussif with its modern white concrete minaret, Mrs. Lyle said: "Eric, I want you to attend to the rooms. I shall go directly to the kitchen and set about showing them how to make tea." To Port she said, holding up her handbag: "I always carry the tea here in my bag with me when we're on a voyage. Otherwise I should have to wait forever while that wretched boy attended to the automobile and the luggage. I believe there's nothing at all to see in Boussif, so we shall be spared going into the streets." "Derb Ech Chergui," said Port. And as she turned to look at him in astonishment, "I was just reading a sign," he said reassuringly. The long main street was empty, cooking in the afternoon sun, whose strength seemed doubled by the fact that over the mountains ahead to the south still hung the massive dark clouds that had been there since the early morning. Chapter 10 It was a very old train. From the low ceiling in the corridor of their carriage hung a row of kerosene lamps that swung violently back and forth in unison as the ancient vehicle rocked along. When they had been about to pull out of the station, Kit, in the usual desperation she felt at the beginning of a train ride,

had jumped down, run over to the newsstand, and bought several French magazines, getting back aboard just as they were starting up. Now, in the indistinct mixture of fading daylight and the yellow glow cast by the dim lamps, she held them on her lap and opened one after the other, trying to see what was in them. The only one she could see at all was full of photographs: Cine Pour Tous. They had the compartment to themselves. Tunner sat opposite her. "You can't read in this light," he said. "I'm just looking at pictures." "Oh." "You'll excuse me, won't you? In a minute I won't even be able to do this much. I'm a little nervous on trains. "Go right ahead," he said. They had brought a cold supper with them, put up by the hotel. From time to time Tunner eyed the basket speculatively. Finally she looked up and caught him at it. "Tunner! Don't tell me you're hungry!" she cried. "Only my tapeworm." "You're revolting." She lifted the basket, glad to be able to engage in any manual activity. One by one she pulled out the thick sandwiches, separately wrapped in flimsy paper napkins. "I told them not to give us any of that lousy Spanish ham. It's raw, and you can really get worms from it. I'm sure some of these are made of it, though. I think I can smell it. They always think you're talking just to hear the sound of your voice." "I'll eat the ham if there is any," said Tunner. "It's good stuff, if I remember." "Oh, it tastes all right." She brought out a package of hard-boiled eggs, wrapped with some very oily black olives. The train shrieked and plunged into a tunnel. Kit hastily put the eggs into the basket and looked apprehensively at the window. She could see the outline of her face reflected in the glass, pitilessly illumined by the feeble glare from overhead. The stench of coal smoke increased each second; she could feel it constricting her lungs. "Phew!" Tunner choked. She sat still, waiting. If the accident were going to come, it would probably be either in a tunnel or on a trestle. "If I could only be sure it would happen tonight," she thought. "I could relax. But the uncertainty. You never know, so you always wait." Presently they emerged, breathed again. Outside, over the miles of indistinct rocky land, the mountains loomed, jet-black. Above their sharp crests what little light was left in the sky came from between heavy threatening clouds. "How about those eggs?" "Oh!" She handed him the whole package. "I don't want 'em all!" "You must eat them," she said, making a great effort to be present, to take part in the little life going on inside the creaking wooden walls of the car. "I only want some fruit. And a sandwich." But she found the bread hard and dry; she had difficulty chewing it. Tunner was busy leaning over, dragging out one of his valises from under the seat. She slipped the uneaten sandwich into the space between her seat and the window. He sat up, his face triumphant, holding a large dark bottle; he fished in his pocket a moment, and brought out a corkscrew. "What is it?" "You guess," he said grinning. "Not-champagne!" "The first time." In her nervousness she reached out and clasped his head in her two hands, kissing him noisily on the forehead. "You darling!" she cried. "You're marvelous!" He tugged at the cork; there was a pop. A haggard woman in black passed along the corridor and stared in at them. Holding the bottle in his hand, Tunner rose and drew the shades. Kit watched him, thinking: "He's very different from Port. Port would never have done this." And as he poured it out into the plastic traveling cups, she continued to debate with herself. "But it means nothing except that he spent the money. It's something bought, that's all. Still, being willing to spend the money.... And having thought of it, more than anything." They touched cups in a toast. There was no familiar clink-only a dead paper-like sound. "Here's to Africa," said Tunner, suddenly bashful. He had meant to say: "Here's to tonight." "Yes." She looked at the bottle where he had set it on the floor. Characteristically, she decided at once that it was the magic object which was going to save her, that through its power she might escape the disaster. She drained her cup. He refilled it. "We must make it last," she cautioned, suddenly fearful lest the magic give out. "You think so? Why?" He pulled out the valise and opened it again. "Look." There were five more bottles. "That's why I made such a fuss about carrying this bag myself," he said, smiling to make his dimples deep. "You probably thought I was nuts." "I didn't notice," she said faintly, not even noticing the dimples she disliked so strongly. The sight of so much magic had somewhat overcome her. "So, drink up. Fast and furious." "Don't you worry about me," she laughed. "I don't need any exhortations." She felt absurdly happymuch too happy for the occasion, she reminded herself. But it was always a pendulum; in another hour she would be back where she had been a minute ago. The train came slowly to a stop. Beyond the window it was black night; there was not a light to be seen. Somewhere outside, a voice was singing a strange, repetitious melody. Always beginning high and wandering downward until the breath gave out, only to recommence again at the top of the scale, the song had the pattern of a child's weeping. "Is that a man?" said Kit incredulously. "Where?" said Tunner, looking around. "Singing." He listened a moment. "Hard to tell. Drink up." She drank, and smiled. Soon she was staring out the window at the black night. "I think I was never meant to live," she said ruefully. He looked worried. "Now see here, Kit. I know you're nervous. That's why I brought the fizzwater along. But you've just got to calm down. Take it easy. Relax. Nothing's that important, you know. Who was it said--" "No. That's something I don't want," she interrupted. "Champagne, yes. Philosophy, no. And I think you were incredibly sweet to have thought of it, especially now that I see why you brought it along." He stopped chewing. His face changed expression; his eyes grew a little bit hard. "What do you mean?" "Because you realized I was a nervous fool on trains. And you couldn't possibly have done anything I'd have appreciated more." He chewed again, and grinned. "Oh, forget it. I'm doing all right by it, too, you may have noticed. So here's to good old Mumm!" He uncorked the second bottle. Painfully the train started up again. The fact that they were moving once more exhilarated her. "Dime ingrato, porqui me abandonaste, y sola me dejaste... " she sang. "More?" He held the bottle. "Claro que si, " she said, downing it at one gulp, and stretching forth her cup again, immediately. The train jolted along, stopping every little while, each time in what looked like empty countryside. But always there were voices out beyond in the darkness, shouting in the guttural mountain tongue. They completed their supper; as Kit was eating her last fig, Tunner bent over to pull out another bottle from the valise. Without quite knowing what she was doing, she reached into the space where she had hidden her sandwich, drew it out and stuffed it into her handbag on top of her compact. He poured her some champagne. "The champagne's not as cool as it was," she said, sipping it. "Can't have everything." "Oh, but I love it! I don't mind it warm. You know, I think I'm getting quite high." "Bah! Not on the little bit you've had." He laughed. "Oh, you don't know me! When I'm nervous or upset, right off I'm high." He looked at his watch. "Well, we've got another eight hours at least. We might as well dig in. Is it all right with you if I change seats and sit with you?" "Of course. I asked you to when we first got on, so you wouldn't have to ride backwards." "Fine." He rose, stretched, yawned, and sat down beside her very hard, bumping against her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I miscalculated the beast's gyrations. God, what a train." His right arm went around her, and he pulled her toward him a little. "Lean against me. You'll be more comfortable. Relax! You're all tense and tight." "Tight, yes! I'm afraid so." She laughed; to her it sounded like a titter. She reclined partially against him, her head on his shoulder. "This should make me feel comfortable," she was thinking, "but it only makes everything worse. I'm going to jump out of my skin." For a few minutes she made herself sit there without moving. It was difficult not to be tense, because it seemed to her that the motion of the train kept pushing her toward him. Slowly she felt the muscles of his arm tightening around her waist. The train came to a halt. She bounded up, crying: "I want to go to the door and see what it looks like outside." He rose, put his arm around her again, held it there with insistence, and said: "You know what it looks like. just dark mountains." She looked up into his face. "I know. Please, Tunner." She wriggled slightly, and felt him let go. At that moment the door into the corridor opened, and the ravaged-looking woman in black made as if to enter the compartment. "Ah, pardon. Je me suis trompee," she said, scowling balefully, and going on without shutting the door behind her. "What does that old harpy want?" said Tunner. Kit walked to the doorway, stood in it, and said loudly: "She's just a voyeuse." The woman, already halfway down the corridor, turned furiously and glared at her. Kit was delighted. The satisfaction she derived from knowing that the woman had heard the word struck her as absurd. Yet there it was, a strong, exultant force inside her. "A little more and I'll be hysterical. And then Tunner will be helpless!" In normal situations she felt that Port was inclined to lack understanding, but in extremities no one else could take his place; in really bad moments she relied on him utterly, not because he was an infallible guide under such circumstances, but because a section of her consciousness annexed him as a buttress, so that in part she identified herself with him. "And Port's not here. So no hysteria,please." Aloud she said: "I'll be right back. Don't let the witch in." "I'll come with you," he said. "Really, Tunner," she laughed. "I'm afraid where I'm going you'd be just a little in the way." He strove not to show his embarrassment. "Oh! Okay. Sorry." The corridor was empty. She tried to see out the windows, but they were coated with dust and fingermarks. Up ahead she could hear the noise of voices. The doors onto the quai were closed. She went into the next coach; it was marked "ll," and it was more brightly lighted, more populous, much shabbier. At the other end she met people coming into the car from outside. She crowded past them, got off and walked along the ground toward the front of the train. The fourth-class passengers, all native Berbers and Arabs, were milling about in the midst of a confusion of bundles and boxes, piled on the dirt platform under the faint light of a bare electric bulb. A sharp wind swept down from the nearby mountains. Quickly she slipped in among the people and climbed aboard. As she entered the car, her first impression was that she was not on the train at all. It was merely an oblong area, crowded to bursting with men in dun-colored burnouses, squatting, sleeping, reclining, standing, and moving about through a welter of amorphous bundles. She stood still an instant taking in the sight; for the first time she felt she was in a strange land. Someone was pushing her from behind, obliging her to go on into the car. She resisted, seeing no place to move to, and fell against a man with a white beard, who stared at her sternly. Under his gaze she felt like a badly behaved child.

"Pardon, monsieur," she said, trying to bend out of the way in order to avoid the growing pressure from behind. It was useless; she was impelled forward in spite of all her efforts, and staggering over the prostrate forms and the piles of objects, she moved into the middle of the car. The train lurched into motion. She glanced around a little fearfully. The idea occurred to her that these were Moslems, and that the odor of alcohol on her breath would scandalize them almost as much as if she were suddenly to remove all her clothing. Stumbling over the crouched figures, she worked her way to one side of the windowless wall and leaned against it while she took out a small bottle of perfume from her bag and rubbed it over her face and neck, hoping it would counteract, or at least blend with, whatever alcoholic odor there might be about her. As she rubbed, her fingers struck a small, soft object on the nape of her neck. She looked: it was a yellow louse. She had partly crushed it. With disgust she wiped her finger against the wall. Men were looking at her, but with neither sympathy nor antipathy. Nor even with curiosity, she thought. They had the absorbed and vacant expression of the man who looks into the handkerchief after blowing his nose. She shut her eyes for a moment. To her surprise she felt hungry. She took the sandwich out and ate it, breaking off the bread in small pieces and chewing them violently. The man leaning against the wall beside her was also eating-small dark objects which he kept taking out of the hood of his garment and crunching noisily. With a faint shudder she saw that they were red locusts with the legs and heads removed. The babble of voices which had been constant suddenly ceased; people appeared to be listening. Above the rumbling of the train and the rhythmical clacking of the wheels over the rails she could hear the sharp, steady sound of rain on the tin roof of the car. The men were nodding their heads; conversation started up again. She determined to fight her way back to the door in order to be able to get down at the next stop. Holding her head slightly lowered in front of her, she began to burrow wildly through the crowd. There were groans from below as she stepped on sleepers, there were exclamations of indignation as her elbows came in contact with faces. At each step she cried: "Pardon! Pardon!" She had got herself wedged into a corner at the end of the car. Now all she needed was to get to the door. Barring her way was a wild-faced man holding a severed sheep's head, its eyes like agate marbles staring from their sockets. "Oh!" she moaned. The man looked at her stolidly, making no movement to let her by. Using all her strength, she fought her way around him, rubbing her skirt against the bloody neck as she squeezed past. With relief she saw that the door onto the platform was open; she would have only to get by those who filled the entrance. She began her cries of "Pardon!" once more, and charged through. The platform itself was less crowded because the cold rain was sweeping across it. Those sitting there had their heads covered with the hoods of their burnouses. Turning her back to the rain she gripped the iron railing and looked directly into the most hideous human face she had ever seen. The tall man wore cast-off European clothes, and a burlap bag over his head like a haik. But where his nose should have been was a dark triangular abyss, and the strange flat lips were white. For no reason at all she thought of a lion's muzzle; she could not take her eyes away from it. The man seemed neither to see her nor to feel the rain; he merely stood there. As she stared she found herself wondering why it was that a diseased face, which basically means nothing, should be so much more horrible to look at than a face whose tissues are healthy but whose expression reveals an interior corruption. Port would say that in a non-materialistic age it would not be thus. And probably he would be right. She was drenched through and shivering, but she still held on to the cold metal railing and looked straight ahead of her-sometimes into the face, and sometimes to one side into the gray, rain-filled air of the night behind it. It was a tete-a-tete which would last until they came to a station. The train was laboring slowly, noisily, up a steep grade. From time to time, in the middle of the shaking and racket, there was a hollow sound for a few seconds as it crossed a short bridge or a trestle. At such moments it seemed to her that she was moving high in the air and that far below there was water rushing between the rocky walls of the chasms. The driving rain continued. She had the impression of living a dream of terror which refused to come to a finish. She was not conscious of time passing; on the contrary, she felt that it had stopped, that she had become a static thing suspended in a vacuum. Yet underneath was the certainty that at a given moment it would no longer be this way-but she did not want to think of that, for fear that she should become alive once more, that time should begin to move again and that she should be aware of the endless seconds as they passed. And so she stood unmoving, always shivering, holding herself very erect. When the train slowed down and came to a stop, the lion-faced man was gone. She got off and hurried through the rain, back toward the end of the train. As she climbed into the second-class carriage, she remembered that he had stepped aside like any normal man, to let her pass. She began to laugh to herself, quietly. Then she stood still. There were people in the corridor, talking. She turned and went back to the toilet, locked herself in, and began to make up by the flickering lantern overhead, look ing into the small oval mirror above the washstand. She was still trembling with cold, and water ran down her legs onto the floor. When she felt she could face Tunner again, she went out, down the corridor, and crossed over into the first-class coach. The door of their compartment was open. Tunner was staring moodily out the window. He turned as she went in, and jumped up. "My God, Kit! Where have you been?" "In the fourth-class carriage?" She was shaking violently, so that it was impossible for her to sound nonchalant, as she had intended. "But look at you! Come in here." His voice was suddenly very serious. He pulled her firmly into the compartment, shut the door, helped her to sit down, and immediately began to go through his luggage, taking things out and laying them on the seat. She watched him in a stupor. Presently he was holding two aspirin tablets and a plastic cup in front of her face. "Take these," he commanded. The cup contained champagne. She did as she was told. Then he indicated the flannel bathrobe on the seat across from her. "I'm going out into the passageway here, and I want you to take off every stitch you have on, and put on that. Then you rap on the door and I'll come in and massage your feet. No excuses, now. Just do it." He went out and rolled the door shut after him. She pulled down the shades at the outside windows and did as he had told her. The robe was soft and warm; she sat huddled in it on the seat for a while, her legs drawn up under her. And she poured herself three more cups of champagne, drinking them quickly one after the other. Then she tapped softly on the glass. The door opened a little. "All clear?" said Tunner. "Yes, yes. Come in." He sat down opposite her. "Now, stick your foot out here. I'm going to give them an alcohol rub. What's the matter with you, anyway? Are you crazy? Want to get pneumonia? What happened? Why were you so long? You had me nuts here, running up and down the place, in and out of cars asking everybody if they'd seen you. I didn't know where the hell you'd gone to." "I told you I was in the fourth-class with the natives. I couldn't get back because there's no bridge between the cars. That feels wonderful. You'll wear yourself out." He laughed, and rubbed more vigorously. "Never have yet." When she was completely warm and comfortable he reached up and turned the lantern's wick very low. Then he moved across and sat beside her. The arm went around her, the pressure began again. She could think of nothing to say to stop him. "You all right?" he asked softly, his voice husky. "Yes," she said. A minute later she whispered nervously: "No, no, no! Someone may open the door." "No one's going to open the door." He kissed her. Over and over in her head she heard the slow wheels on the rails saying: "Not now not now, not now not now..." And underneath she imagined the deep chasms in the rain, swollen with water. She reached up and caressed the back of his head, but she said nothing. "Darling," he murmured. "Just be still. Rest." She could no longer think, nor were there any more images in her head. She was aware only of the softness of the woolen bathrobe next to her skin, and then of the nearness and warmth of a being that did not frighten her. The rain beat against the window panes. Chapter 11 The roof of the hotel in the early morning, before the sun had come from behind the nearby mountainside, was a pleasant place for breakfast. The tables were set out along the edge of the terrace, overlooking the valley. In the gardens below, the fig trees and high stalks of papyrus moved slightly in the fresh morning wind. Farther down were the larger trees where the storks had made their huge nests, and at the bottom of the slope was the river, running with thick red water. Port sat drinking his coffee, enjoying the rain-washed smell of the mountain air. just below, the storks were teaching their young to fly; the ratchet-like croaking of the older birds was mingled with shrill cries from the fluttering young ones. As he watched, Mrs. Lyle came through the doorway from downstairs. It seemed to him that she looked unusually distraught. He invited her to sit with him, and she ordered her tea from an old Arab waiter in a shoddy rose-colored uniform. "Gracious! Aren't we ever picturesque!" she said. Port called her attention to the birds; they watched them until her tea was brought. "Tell me, has your wife arrived safely?" "Yes, but I haven't seen her. She's still asleep." "I should think so, after that damnable trip." "And your son. Still in bed?" "Good heavens, no! He's gone off somewhere, to see some cald or other. That boy has letters of introduction to Arabs in every town of North Africa, I expect." She became pensive. After a moment she said, looking at him sharply: "I do hope you don't go near them." "Arabs, you mean? I don't know any personally. But it's rather hard not to go near them, since they're all over the place." "Oh, I'm talking about social contact with them. Eric's an absolute fool. He wouldn't be ill today if it hadn't been for those filthy people." "Ill? He looks well enough to me. What's wrong with him? " "He's very ill." Her voice sounded distant; she looked down toward the river. Then she poured herself some more tea, and offered Port a biscuit from a tin she had brought

upstairs with her. Her voice more definite, she continued. "They're all contaminated, you know, of course. Well, that's it. And I've been having the most beastly time trying to make him get proper treatment. He's a young idiot." "I don't think I quite understand," said Port. "An infection, an infection," she said impatiently. "Some filthy swine of an Arab woman," she added, with astonishing violence. "Ah," said Port, noncommittal. Now she sounded less sure of herself. "I've been told that such infections can even be transmitted among men directly. Do you believe that, Mr. Moresby?" "I really don't know," he answered, looking at her in some surprise. "There's so much uninformed talk about such things. I should think a doctor would know best." She passed him another biscuit. "I don't blame you for not wanting to discuss it. You must forgive me." "Oh, I have no objection at all," he protested. "But I'm not a doctor. You understand." She seemed not to have heard him. "It's disgusting. You're quite right." Half of the sun was peering from behind the rim of the mountain; in another minute it would be hot. "Here's the sun," said Port. Mrs. Lyle gathered her things together. "Shall you be staying long in Boussif?" she asked. "We have no plans at all. And you?" "Oh, Eric has some mad itinerary worked out. I believe we go on to Ain Krorfa tomorrow morning, unless he decides to leave this noon and spend the night in Sfissifa. There's supposed to be a fairly decent little hotel there. Nothing so grand as this, of course." Port looked around at the battered tables and chairs, and smiled. "I don't think I'd want anything much less grand than this." "Oh, but my dear Mr. Moresby! This is positively luxurious. This is the best hotel you'll find between here and the Congo. There's nothing after this with running water' you know. Well, we shall see you before we go, in any case. I'm being baked by this horrible sun. Please say good morning to your wife for me." She rose and went downstairs. Port hung his coat on the back of the chair and sat a while, pondering the unusual behavior of this eccentric woman. He could not bring himself to attribute it to mere irresponsibility or craziness; it seemed much more likely that her deportment was a roundabout means of communicating an idea she dared not express directly. In her own confused mind the procedure was apparently logical. All he could be certain of was that her basic motivation was fear. And Eric's was greed; of that also he was sure. But the compound made by the two together continued to mystify him. He had the impression that the merest indication of a design was beginning to take shape; what the design was, what it might end by meaning, all that was still wholly problematical. He guessed however that at the moment mother and son were working at cross-purposes. Each had a reason for being interested in his presence, but the reasons were not identical, nor even complementary, he thought. He consulted his watch: it was ten-thirty. Kit would probably not be awake yet. When he saw her he intended to discuss the matter with her, if she were not still angry with him. Her ability to decipher motivations was considerable. He decided to take a walk around the town. Stopping off in his room, he left his jacket there and picked up his sun glasses. He had reserved the room across the hall for Kit. As he went out he put his ear against the door of her room and listened; there was no sound within. Boussif was a completely modern town, laid out in large square blocks, with the market in the middle. The unpaved streets, lined for the most part with box-shaped one-story buildings, were filled with a rich red mud. A steady procession of men and sheep moved through the principal thoroughfare toward the market, the men walking with the hoods of their burnouses drawn up over their heads against the sun's fierce attack. There was not a tree to be seen anywhere. At' the ends of the transversal streets the bare wasteland sloped slowly upward to the base of the mountains, which were raw, savage rock without vegetation. Except for the faces he found little of interest in the enormous market. At one end there was a tiny cafe with one table set outside under a cane trellis. He sat down and clapped his hands twice. "Ouahad atai, " he called; that much Arabic he remembered. While he sipped the tea, which he noticed was made with dried mint leaves instead of fresh, he observed that the same ancient bus kept passing the cafe, sounding its horn insistently. He watched it as it went by. Filled with native passengers, it made the tour of the market again and again, the boy on the back platform pounding its resonant tin body rhythmically, and shouting: "Arfa! Arfa! Arfa! Arfa!" without stopping. He sat there until lunchtime. Chapter 12 The first thing Kit knew when she awoke was that she had a bad hangover. Then she noticed the bright sun shining into the room. What room? It was too much effort for her to think back. Something moved at her side on the pillow. She rolled her eyes to the left, and saw a shapeless dark mass beside her head. She cried out and sprang up, but even as she did so she knew it was only Tunner's black hair, In his sleep he stirred, and stretched out his arm to embrace her. Her head pounding, painfully, she jumped out of bed and stood staring at him. "My God!" she said aloud. With difficulty she aroused him, made him get up and dress, forced him out into the hall with all his luggage, and quickly locked the door after him. Then, before he had thought of finding a boy to help him with the bags, while he was still standing there stupidly, she opened the door and made a whispered demand for a bottle of champagne. He got one out, passed it in to her, and she shut the door again. She sat down on the bed and drank the whole bottle. Her need for the drink was partly physical, but particularly she felt she could not face Port until she had engaged in an inner dialogue from which she might emerge in some measure absolved for last night. She also hoped the champagne would make her ill, so that she could have a legitimate reason for staying in bed all day. It had quite the opposite effect: no sooner had she finished it than her hangover was gone, and she felt slightly tipsy, but very well. She went to the window and looked out onto the glaring courtyard where two Arab women were washing clothes in a large stone basin, spreading them out over the bushes to dry in the sun. She turned quickly and unpacked her overnight case, scattering the objects about the room. Then she began a careful search for any trace of Tunner that might be left in the room. A black hair on the pillow caused her heart to skip a beat; she dropped it out the window. Meticulously she made the bed, spread the woolen cover over it. Next she called the maid and asked her to have the fathma come and wash the floor. That way, if Port should arrive soon, it would look as though the maid had already finished the room. She dressed and went downstairs. The fathma's heavy bracelets jangled as she scrubbed the tiles. When he got back to the hotel Port knocked on the door of the room opposite his. A male voice said: "Entrez," and he walked in. Tunner had partially undressed and was unpacking his valises. He had not thought to unmake the bed, but Port did not notice this. "What the hell!" said Port. "Don't tell me they've given Kit the lousy back room I reserved for you." "I guess they must have. But thanks anyway." Tunner laughed. "You don't mind changing, do you?" "Why? Is the other room so bad? No, I don't mind. It just seems like a lot of damned nonsense for just a day. No?" "Maybe it'll be more than a day. Anyway, I'd like Kit to be here across from me." "Of course. Of course. Better let her know too, though. She's probably in the other room there in all innocence, thinking it's the best in the hotel." "It's not a bad room. It's just on the back, that's all. It was all they had yesterday when I reserved them." "Righto. We'll get one of these monkeys to make the shift for us." At lunch the three were reunited. Kit was nervous; she talked steadily, mainly about post-war European politics. The food was bad, so that none of them was in a very pleasant humor. "Europe has destroyed the whole world," said Port. "Should I be thankful to it and sorry for it? I hope the whole place gets wiped off the map." He wanted to cut short the discussion, to get Kit aside and talk with her privately. Their long, rambling, supremely personal conversations always made him feel better. But she hoped particularly to avoid just such a tite-a-tite. "Why don't you extend your good wishes to all humanity, while you're at it?" she demanded. "Humanity?" cried Port. "What's that? Who is humanity? I'll tell you. Humanity is everyone but one's self. So of what interest can it possibly be to anybody?" Tunner said slowly: "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'd like to take issue with you on that. I'd say humanity is you, and that's just what makes it interesting. "Good, Tunner!" cried Kit. Port was annoyed. "What rot!" he snapped, 'You're never humanity; you're only your own poor hopelessly isolated self." Kit tried to interrupt. He raised his voice and went on. "I don't have to justify my existence by any such primitive means. The fact that I breathe is my Justification. If humanity doesn't consider that a justification, it can do what it likes to me. I'm not going to carry a passport to existence around with me, to prove I have the right to be here! I'm here! I'm in the world! But my world's not humanity's world. It's the world as I see it." "Don't yell," said Kit evenly. "If that's the way you feel, it's all right with me. But you ought to be bright enough to understand that not everybody feels the same way." They got up. The Lyles smiled from their corner as the trio left the room. Tunner announced: "I'm off for a siesta. No coffee for me. See you later." When Port and Kit stood alone in the hall, he said to her: "Let's have coffee out in the little cafe by the market." "Oh, please!" she protested. "After that leaden meal? I couldn't ever walk anywhere. I'm still exhausted from the trip." "All right; up in my room?" She hesitated. "For a few minutes. Yes, I'd love it." Her voice did not sound enthusiastic. "Then I'm going to have a nap, too." Upstairs they both stretched out on the wide bed and waited for the boy to arrive with the coffee. The curtains were drawn, but the insistent light filtered through them, giving objects in the room a uniform, pleasant rose color. It was very quiet outside in the street; everything but the sun was having a siesta. "What's new?" said Port. "Nothing, except as I told you, I,m worn out from the train trip." "You could have come with us in the car. it was a fine ride." "No, I couldn't. Don't start that again. Oh, I saw Mr. Lyle this morning downstairs. I still think he's a monster. He insisted on showing me not only his own passport, but his mother's, too. Of course they were both crammed with stamps and visas. I told him you'd want to see them, that you liked that sort of thing more than I did.

She was born in Melbourne in t899 and he was born in 1925, 1 don't remember where. Both British passports. So there's all your information." Port glanced sideways at her admiringly. "God, how did you get all that without letting him see you staring?� "Just shuffling the pages quickly. And she's down as a journalist and he as a student. Isn't that ridiculous? I'm sure he never opened a book in his life." "Oh, he's a halfwit," said Port absently, taking her hand and stroking it. "Are you sleepy, baby?" "Yes, terribly, and I'm only going to take a tiny sip of coffee because I don't want to get waked up. I want to sleep." "So do I, now that I'm lying down. If he doesn't come in a minute I'll go down and cancel the order." But a knock came at the door. Before they had time to reply, it was flung open, and the boy advanced bearing a huge copper tray. "Deux cafis," he said grinning. "Look at that mug," said Port. "He thinks he's come in on a hot romance." "Of course. Let the poor boy think it. He has to have some fun in life." The Arab set the tray down discreetly by the window and tiptoed out of the room, looking back once over his shoulder at the bed, almost wistfully, it seemed to Kit. Port got up and brought the tray to the bed. As they had their coffee he turned to her suddenly. "Listen!" he cried, his voice full of enthusiasm. Looking at him, she thought: "How like an adolescent he is." "Yes?" she said, feeling like a middle-aged mother. "There's a place that rents bicycles near the market. When you wake up, let's hire a couple and go for a ride. It's fairly flat all around Boussif." The idea appealed to her vaguely, although she could not imagine why. "Perfect!" she said. "I'm sleepy. You can wake me at five, if you think of it." Chapter 13 They rode slowly out the long street toward the cleft in the low mountain ridge south of the town. Where the houses ended the plain began, on either side of them, a sea of stones. The air was cool, the dry sunset wind blew against them. Port's bicycle squeaked slightly as he pedaled. They said nothing, Kit riding a little ahead. In the distance, behind them, a bugle was being blown; a firm, bright blade of sound in the air. Even now, when it would be setting in a half-hour or so, the sun burned. They came to a village, went through it. The dogs barked wildly and the women turned away, covering their mouths. Only the children remained as they were, looking, in a paralysis of surprise. Beyond the village, the road began to rise. They were aware of the grade only from their pedaling; to the eye it looked flat. Soon Kit was tired. They stopped, looked back across the seemingly level plain to Boussif, a pattern of brown blocks at the base of the mountains. The breeze blew harder. "It's the freshest air you'll ever smell," said Port. "It's wonderful," said Kit. She was in a dreamy, amiable state of mind, and she did not feel talkative. "Shall we try and make the pass there?" "In a minute. I just want to catch my breath." Presently they started out again, pedaling determinedly, their eyes on the gap in the ridge ahead. As they approached it, already they could see the endless flat desert beyond, broken here and there by sharp crests of rock that rose above the surface like the dorsal fins of so many monstrous fish, all moving in the same direction. The road had been blasted through the top of the ridge, and the jagged boulders had slid down on both sides of the cut. They left the bicycles by the road and started to climb upward among the huge rocks, toward the top of the ridge. The sun was at the flat horizon; the air was suffused with redness. As they stepped around the side of a boulder they came all at once on a man, seated with his burnous pulled up about his neck-so that he was stark naked from the shoulders downdeeply immersed in the business of shaving his pubic hair with a long pointed knife. He glanced up at them with indifference as they passed before him, immediately lowering his head again to continue the careful operation. Kit took Port's hand. They climbed in silence, happy to be together. "Sunset is such a sad hour," she said, presently. "If I watch the end of a day-any day-I always feel it's the end of a whole epoch. And the autumn! It might as well be the end of everything," he said. "That's why I hate cold countries, and love the warm ones, where there's no winter, and when night comes you feel an opening up of the life there, instead of a closing down. Don't you feel that?" "Yes," said Kit, "but I'm not sure I prefer the warm countries. I don't know. I'm not sure i don't feel that it's wrong to try to escape the night and winter, and that if You do you,ll have to pay for it somehow." "Oh, Kit! You're really crazy." He helped her up the side of a low Cliff. The desert was directly below them, much farther down than the plain from which they had just climbed. She did not answer- It made her sad to realize that in spite of their so often having the same reactions, the same feelings, they never would reach the same conclusions, because their respective aims in life were almost diametrically opposed. They sat down on the rocks side by side, facing the vastness below. She linked her arm through his and rested her head against his shoulder. He only stared straight before him, sighed, and finally shook his head slowly. It was such places as this, such moments that he loved above all else in life; she knew that, and she also knew that he loved them more if she could be there to experience them with him. And although he was aware that the very silences and emptinesses that touched his soul terrified her, he could not bear to be reminded of that. It was as if always he held the fresh hope that she, too, would be touched in the same way as he by solitude and the proximity to infinite things. He had often told her: "it is your only hope," and she was never sure what he meant. Sometimes she thought he meant that it was his only hope, that only if she were able to become as he was, could be find his way back to love, since love for Port meant loving her--there was no question of anyone else. And now for so long there had been no love, no possibility of it. But in spite of her willingness to become whatever he wanted her to become, she could not change that much: the terror was always there inside her ready to take command. It was useless to pretend otherwise. And just as she was unable to shake off the dread that was always with her, he was unable to break out of the cage into which he had shut himself, the cage he had built long ago to save himself from love. She pinched his arm. "Look there!" she whispered. Only a few paces from them, atop a rock, sitting so still that they had not noticed him, was a venerable Arab, his legs tucked under him, his eyes shut. At first it seemed as though he might be asleep, in spite of his erect posture, since he made no sign of being conscious of their presence. But then they saw his lips moving ever so little, and they knew he was praying. "Do you think we should watch like this?" she said, her voice hushed. "It's all right. We'll just sit here quietly." He put his head in her lap and lay looking up at the clear sky. Over and over, very lightly, she stroked his hair. The wind from the regions below gathered force. Slowly the sky lost its intensity of light. She glanced up at the Arab; he had not moved. Suddenly she wanted to go back, but she sat perfectly still for a while looking tenderly down at the inert head beneath her hand. "You know," said Port, and his voice sounded unreal, as voices are likely to do after a long pause in an utterly silent spot, "the sky here's very strange. I often have the sensation when I look at it that it's a solid thing up there, protecting us from what's behind." Kit shuddered slightly as she said: "From what's behind?" "Yes." "But what is behind?" Her voice was very small. "Nothing, I suppose. Just darkness. Absolute night-" "Please don't talk about it now." There was agony in her entreaty. "Everything you say frightens me, up here. It's getting dark, and the wind is blowing, and I can't stand it." He sat up, put his arms about her neck, kissed her, drew back and looked at her, kissed her again, drew back again, and so on, several times. There were tears on her cheeks. She smiled forlornly as he rubbed them away with his forefingers. "You know what?" he said with great earnestness. "I think we're both afraid of the same thing. And for the same reason. We've never managed, either one of us, to get all the way into life. We're hanging on to the outside for all we're worth, convinced we're going to fall off at the next bump. Isn't that true?" She shut her eyes for a moment. His lips on her cheek had awakened the sense of guilt, and it swept over her now in a great wave that made her dizzy and ill. She had spent her siesta trying to wipe her conscience clean of the things that had happened the night before, but now she was clearly aware that she had not been able to do it, and that she never would be able to do it. She put her hand to her forehead, holding it there. At length she said: "But if we're not in, then we are more likely to-fall off." She had hoped he would offer some argument to this, that he would find his own analogy faulty, perhaps that some consolation would be forthcoming, All he said was: "I don't know." The light was growing palpably dimmer. Still the old Arab sat buried in his prayers, severe and statue-like in the advancing dusk. It seemed to Port that behind them, back on the plain, he could hear one long-drawnout bugle note, but it went on and on. No man could hold his breath that long: it was his imagination. He took her hand and pressed it. "We must go back," he whispered. Quickly they rose and went leaping over the rocks down to the road. The bicycles were there where they had left them. They coasted silently back toward the town. The dogs in the village set up a clamor as they sped past. At the market place they left the bicycles, and walked slowly through the street that led to the hotel, head on into the parade of men and sheep that continued its steady advance into the town, even at night. All the way back to town Kit had been turning an idea over and over in her head: "Somehow Port knows about Tunner and me." At the same time she did not believe he was conscious of knowing it. But with a deeper part of his intelligence she was certain he felt the truth, felt what had happened. As they walked along the dark street she was almost tempted to ask him how he knew. She was curious about the functioning of a purely animal sense like that, in a man as complex as Port. But it would have done no good; as soon as he had been made aware of his knowledge he would have decided to be furiously jealous, immediately there would have been a scene, and all the implicit tenderness between them would have vanished, perhaps never to be recovered. To have not even that tenuous communion with him would be unbearable. Port did a curious thing when dinner was over. Alone he went out to the market, sat in the cafe for a

few minutes watching the animals and men by the flickering carbide lamps, and on passing the open door of the shop where he had rented the bicycles, went in. There he asked for a bicycle equipped with a headlight, told the man to wait for him until he returned, and quickly rode off in the direction of the gap. Up there among the rocks it was cold, the night wind blew. There was no moon; he could not see the desert in front of him, down below-only the hard stars above that flared in the sky. He sat on the rock and let the wind chill him. Riding down to Boussif he realized he never could tell Kit that he had been back there. She would not understand his having wanted to return without her. Or perhaps, he reflected, she would understand it too well. Chapter 14 Two nights later they got on the bus for Ain Krorfa, having chosen the night car to avoid the heat, which is oppressive along that route. Somehow, too, the dust seems less heavy when one cannot see it. Daytime, as the bus makes its way across this part of the desert, winding down and up through the small canyons, one watches the trail of dust that rises in the car's wake, sometimes breathing it in when the road doubles back on itself sharply. The fine powder piles up on every surface which is anywhere near to being horizontal, and this includes the wrinkles in the skin, the eyelids, the insides of the ears, and even, on occasions, hidden spots like the navel. And by day, unless the traveler is accustomed to such quantities of dust, he is supremely conscious of its presence, and is likely to magnify the discomfort it causes him. But at night, because the stars are bright in the clear sky, he has the impression, so long as he does not move, that there is no dust. The steady hum of the motor lulls him into a trance-like state in which his entire attention goes to watching the road move endlessly toward him as the headlights uncover it. That is, until he falls asleep, to be awakened later by the stopping of the bus at some dark, forsaken bordj, where he gets out chilled and stiff, to drink a glass of sweet coffee inside the gates. Having received their places in advance, they had been able to get the most desirable seats in the bus, which were those in front with the driver. There was less dust here, and the heat from the motor, although excessive and a bit uncomfortable for the feet, was welcome by eleven O'clock, when the warmth of the day had totally disappeared and they became conscious of the dry, intense cold that always comes at night in this high region. And so all three of them were squeezed together with the driver, on the front seat. Tunner, who sat by the door, seemed to be asleep. Kit, with her head resting heavily against Port's arm, stirred a little now and then, but her eyes were closed. Straddling the emergency brake, and with his ribs continually being prodded by the driver's elbow as he steered, Port had by far the least comfortable spot, and consequently he was wide awake. He sat staring ahead through the windshield at the flat road that kept coming on, always toward him, and always being devoured by the headlights. Whenever he was en route from one place to another, he was able to look at his life with a little more objectivity than usual. It was often on trips that he thought most clearly, and made the decisions that he could not reach when he was stationary. Since the day he and Kit had gone bicycling together he had felt a definite desire to strengthen the sentimental bonds between them. Slowly it was assuming an enormous importance to him. At times he said to himself that subconsciously he had had that in mind when he had conceived this expedition with Kit from New York into the unknown; it was only at the last minute that Tunner had been asked to come along, and perhaps that, too, had been subconsciously motivated, but out of fear; for much as he desired the rapprochement, he knew that also he dreaded the emotional responsibilities it would entail. But now, here in this distant and unconnected part of the world, the longing for closer ties with her was proving stronger than the fear. To forge such a bond required that they be alone together. The last two days at Boussif had been agonizing ones. It was almost as if Tunner had been aware of Port's desire and were determined to frustrate it. He had been present with them all day and half the night, ceaselessly talking, and apparently without a wish in the world save that of sitting with them, eating with them, taking walks with them, and even going with them to Kit's room at night, when of all times Port wanted to be alone with her, and standing for an hour or so in the doorway making pointless conversation. (It occurred to him, naturally, that Tunner might still have hopes of getting his way with her. The exaggerated attention he paid her, the banal flattery which was supposed to pass for gallantry, made him think this likely; but because Port ingenuously believed that his own feeling for Kit was identical in every respect with hers for him, he remained convinced that never under any circumstances would she yield to a person like Tunner.) The only time he had succeeded in getting Kit out of the hotel alone had been while Tunner was still having his siesta, and then they had gone a scant hundred yards down the street and run into Eric Lyle, who straightway had announced that he would be delighted to accompany them on their walk. This he had done, to Port's silent fury, and Kit's visible disgust; indeed, Kit had been so annoyed by his presence that she had scarcely sat down at the cafe in the market when she had complained of a headache and rushed back to the hotel, leaving Port to cope with Eric. The objectionable youth was looking particularly pale and pimply in a flamboyant shirt decorated with giant tulips. He had bought the material, he said, in the Congo. Once alone with Port, he had had the effrontery to ask him to lend him ten thousand francs, explaining that his mother was eccentric about money, and often flatly refused for weeks at a time to give him any. "Not a chance. Sorry," Port had said, determining to be adamant. The sum had gradually been reduced, until at last he had remarked wistfully: "Even five hundred francs would keep me in smokes for a fortnight." "I never lend anyone money," Port had explained with annoyance. "But you will me." His voice was of honey. "I will not." "I'm not one of those stupid English who think all Americans have pots of money. It isn't that at all. But my mother's mad. She simply refuses to give me money. What am I to do?" "Since he has no shame," thought Port, "I'll have no mercy." So he said: "The reason I won't lend you money is that I know I'll never get it back, and I haven't enough to give away. You see? But I'll give you three hundred francs. Gladly. I notice you smoke the tabac du pays. Fortunately it's very cheap." In Oriental fashion Eric had bowed his head in agreement. Then he held forth his hand for the money. It made Port uncomfortable even now to recall the scene. When he had got back to the hotel he had found Kit and Tunner drinking beer together in the bar, and since then he had not had her to himself a minute, save the night before, when she had bidden him good night in the doorway. It did not make it easier for him, the fact that he suspected she was trying to keep from being alone with him. "But there's plenty of time," he said to himself. "The only thing is, I must get rid of Tunner." He was pleased to have reached at last a definite decision, Perhaps Tunner would take a hint and leave of his own accord; if not, they would have to leave him. Either way, it must be done, and immediately, before they found a place they wanted to stay in long enough for Tunner to begin using it as a mail address. He could hear the heavy valises sliding about on the top of the bus above his head; with conveyances no better than this he wondered if they had been wise to bring so much. However, it was too late now to do anything about it. There would be no place along the way where they could leave anything, because it was more than likely they would be coming back by some other route, if, indeed, they returned to the Mediterranean coast at all. For he had hopes of being able to continue southward; only, since no data on transportation and lodging facilities ahead of them were available, they would have to take their chances on what each place had to offer, hoping at best to gather some information each time about the next town, as they moved along. It was merely that the institution of tourist travel in this part of the world, never well developed in any case, had been, not interrupted, but utterly destroyed by the war. And so far there had been no tourists to start it up again. In a sense this state of affairs pleased him, it made him feel that he was pioneering-he felt more closely identified with his great-grandparents, when he was rolling along out here in the desert than he did sitting at home looking out over the reservoir in Central Park-but at the same time he wondered how seriously one ought to take the travel bulletins in their attempts to discourage such pioneering: "At present travelers are strongly advised not to undertake land trips into the interiors of French North Africa, French West Africa, or French Equatorial Africa. As more is learned on the subject of touristic conditions in this part of the world, such information will be made available to the public." He had not shown any such paragraphs to Kit while he was making his campaign speeches for Africa as against Europe. What he had shown her was a carefully chosen collection of photographs he had brought back from previous trips: views of oases and markets, as well as attractive vistas of the lobbies and gardens of hotels which no longer operated. So far she was being quite sensible-she had not objected once to the accommodations-but Mrs. Lyle's vivid warning worried him a little. It would not be amusing for very long to sleep in dirty beds, eat inedible meals, and wait an hour or so every time one wanted to wash one's hands. The night went by slowly; yet to Port, watching the road was hypnotic rather than monotonous. If he had not been journeying into regions he did not know, he would have found it insufferable. The idea that at each successive moment he was deeper into the Sahara than he had been the moment before, that he was leaving behind all familiar things, this constant consideration kept him in a state of pleasurable agitation. Kit moved from time to time, lifted her head, and murmuring something unintelligible, let it fall back against him. Once she shifted and allowed it to fall in the other direction, against Tunner who gave no sign of being awake. Firmly Port grasped her arm and pulled her around so that she leaned once more upon his shoulder. About once every hour he and the chauffeur had a cigarette together, but otherwise they engaged in no words. At one point, waving his hands toward the dark, the chauffeur said: "Last year they say they saw a lion around here. The first time in years. They say it ate a lot of sheep. It was probably a

panther, though." "Did they catch it?" "No. They're all afraid of lions." "I wonder what became of it." The driver shrugged his shoulders and lapsed into the silence he obviously preferred. Port was pleased to hear the beast had not been killed. Just before dawn, at the coldest time of the night, they came to a bordj, bleak and austere in the windswept plain. Its single gate was opened, and more asleep than awake, the three staggered in, following the crowd of natives from the back of the bus. The vast courtyard was packed with horses, sheep and men. Several fires blazed; the red sparks flew wildly in the wind. On a bench near the entrance of the room where the coffee was served there were five falcons, each with a black leather mask over its head, and each fastened to a peg in the bench by a delicate chain attached to its leg. They all perched in a row, quite unmoving, as if they had been mounted and ranged there by a taxidermist. Tunner became quite excited about them and rushed around inquiring if the birds were for sale. His questions were answered by polite stares. Finally he returned to the table looking somewhat confused, and sat down saying: "No one seems to know who they belong to." Port snorted. "You mean nobody understood anything you said. What the hell would you want with them anyway?" Tunner reflected a second. Then he laughed and said: "I don't know. I liked them, that's all." When they went out again, the first signs of light were pushing up from behind the plain. And now it was Port's turn to sit by the door. By the time the bordj had become only a tiny white box far behind them, he was asleep. In this way he missed the night's grand finale: the shifting colors that played on the sky from behind the earth before the rising of the sun. Chapter 15 Even before Ain Krorfa was in sight, the flies had made their presence known. As the first straggling oases appeared and the road darted between the high mud walls of the outlying settlements, all at once the bus was mysteriously full of them-small, grayish and tenacious. Some of the Arabs remarked about them, and covered their heads; the rest seemed not to be conscious of them. The driver said: "Ah, les salauds! On voit bien que nous sommes Ain Krorfa!" Kit and Tunner went into a frenzy of activity, waving their arms about, fanning their faces, and blowing sideways frantically to drive the insects off their cheeks and noses, all of which was next to useless. They clung with surprising determination, and had practically to be lifted off, at the last instant they would rise swiftly, and then descend almost simultaneously to the same spot. "We're being attacked!" cried Kit. Tunner set about fanning her with a piece of news paper. Port was still asleep by the door; the corners of his mouth bristled with flies. "They stick when it's cool," said the driver. "Early in the morning you can't get rid of them." "But where do they come from?" demanded Kit. The outraged tone of her voice made him laugh. "This is nothing," he said, with a deprecatory wave of the hand. "You must see them in the town. Like black snow, over everything." "When will there be a bus leaving?" she said. "You mean back to Boussif? I go back tomorrow." "No, no! I mean toward the south." "Ah, that! You must ask in Ain Krorfa. I know only about the Boussif service. I think they have a line that makes Bou Noura once a week, and you can always get a ride on a produce truck to Messad." "Oh, I don't want to go there," said Kit. She had heard Port say Messad was of no interest. "Well, I do," interrupted Tunner in English with some force. "Wait a week in a place like this? My God, I'd be dead!" "Don't get excited. You haven't seen it yet. Maybe the driver's just having us on, as Mr. Lyle would say. Besides, it probably wouldn't be a week, the bus to Bou Noura. It might be leaving tomorrow. It could even be today, as far as that goes." "No," Tunner said obstinately. "One thing I can9t stand is filth." "Yes, you're a real American, I know." She turned her head to look at him, and he felt she was making fun of him. His face grew red. "You're damned right." Port awoke. His first gesture was to drive away the flies from his face. He opened his eyes and stared out the window at the increasing vegetation. High palms shot up behind the walls; beneath them in a tangled mass were the oranges, figs and pomegranates. He opened the window and leaned out to sniff the air. It smelled of mint and woodsmoke. A wide river-bed lay ahead; there was even a meandering stream of water in the middle of it. And on each side of the road, and of all the roads that branched from it, were the deep seguias running with water that is the pride of Ain Krorfa. He withdrew his head and said good morning to his companions. Mechanically he kept brushing away the insistent flies. It was not until several minutes later that he noticed Kit and Tunner doing the same thing. "What are all these flies?" he demanded. Kit looked at Tunner and laughed. Port felt that they had a secret between them. "I was wondering how long it would be before you discovered them," she said. Again they discussed the flies, Tunner calling upon the driver to attest to their number in Nfn Krorfathis for Port's benefit, because he hoped to gain a recruit for his projected exodus to Messad-and Kit repeating that it would be only logical to examine the town before making any decisions. So far she found it the only visually attractive place she had seen since arriving in Africa. This pleasant impression, however, was based wholly upon her appreciation of the verdure she could not help noticing behind the walls as the bus sped onward toward the town; the town itself, once they had arrived, seemed scarcely to exist. She was disappointed to see that it rather resembled Boussif, save that it appeared to be much smaller. What she could see of it was completely modern and geometrically laid out, and had it not been for the fact that the buildings were white instead of brown, and for the sidewalks bordering the principal street, which lay in the shadows of projecting arcades, she easily could have thought herself still in the other town. Her first view of the Grand Hotel's interior quite unnerved her, but Tunner was present and she felt impelled to sustain her position as one who had the right to twit him about his fastidiousness. "Good heavens, what a mess!" she exclaimed; actually her epithet fell far short of describing what she really felt about the patio they had just entered. The simple Tunner was horrified. He merely looked, taking in each detail as it reached his gaze. As for Port, he was too sleepy to see much of anything, and he stood in the entrance, waving his arms around like a windmill in an attempt to keep the flies away from his face. Originally having been built to shelter an administrative office of the colonial government, the building since had fallen on evil days. The fountain which at one time had risen from the basin in the center of the patio was gone, but the basin remained. In it reposed a small mountain of reeking garbage, and reclining on the sides of the mountain were three screaming, naked infants, their soft formless bodies troubled with bursting sores. They looked human there in their helpless misery, but somehow not quite so human as the two pink dogs lying on the tiles nearby-pink because long ago they had lost all their hair, and their raw, aged skin lay indecently exposed to the kisses of the flies and sun. One of them feebly raised its head an inch or so off the floor and looked at the newcomers vacantly through its pale yellow eyes; the other did not move. Behind the columns which formed an arcade at one side were a few amorphous and useless pieces of furniture piled on top of each other. A huge blue and white agateware pitcher stood near the central basin. In spite of the quantity of garbage in the patio, the predominating odor was of the latrine. Above the crying of the babies there was the shrill sound of women's voices in dispute, and the thick noise of a radio boomed in the background. For a brief instant a woman appeared in a doorway. Then she shrieked and immediately disappeared again. In the interior there were screams and giggles; one woman began to cry out: "Yah, Mohammed!" Tunner swung about and went into the street, where he joined the porters who had been told to wait outside with the luggage. Port and Kit stood quietly until the man called Mohammed appeared: he was wrapping a long scarlet sash around and around his waist; the end still trailed along the floor. In the course of the conversation about rooms, he kept insisting that they take one room with three beds-it would be cheaper for them and less work for the maids. "If I could only get out of here," Kit thought, "before Port arranges something with him!" But her sense of guilt expressed itself in allegiance; she-could not go out into the street because Tunner was there and she would appear to be choosing sides. Suddenly she, too, wished Tunner were not with them. She would feel much freer in expressing her own preferences. As she had feared, Port went upstairs with the man, returning presently to announce that the rooms were not really bad at all. They engaged three smelly rooms, all giving onto a small court whose walls were bright blue. in the center of the court was a dead fig tree with masses of barbed wire looped from its branches. As Kit peered from the window a hungry-looking cat with a tiny head and huge ears walked carefully across the court. She sat down on the great brass bed, which, besides the jackal skin on the floor by it, was the only furnishing in the room. She could scarcely blame Tunner for having refused at first even to look at the rooms. But as Port said, one always ends by getting used to anything, and although at the moment Tunner was inclined to be a little unpleasant about it, by night he would probably have grown accustomed to the whole gamut of incredible odors. At lunch they sat in a bare, well-like room without windows, where the temptation was to whisper, since the spoken word was attended by distorting echoes. The only light came from the door into the main patio. Port clicked the switch of the overhead electric bulb: nothing happened. The barefoot waitress giggled. "No light," she said, setting their soup on the table. "All right," said Tunner, "we'll eat in the patio." The waitress rushed out of the room and returned with Mohammed, who frowned but set about helping them move the table and chairs out under the arcade. "Thank heavens they're Arabs, and not French," said Kit. "Otherwise it would have been against the rules to eat out here." "If they were French we could eat inside," said Tunner. They lighted cigarettes in the hope of counteracting some of the stench that occasionally was wafted toward them from the basin. The babies were gone; their screams came from an inner room now. Tunner stopped eating his soup and stared at it. Then he pushed his chair back and threw his napkin onto the table. "Well, by God in heaven, this may be the only

hotel in town, but I can find better food than this in the market. Look at the soup! It's full of corpses." Port examined his bowl. "They've weevils. They must have been in the noodles." "Well, they're in the soup now. It's thick with 'em. You all can eat here at Carrion Towers if you like. I'm going to dig up a native restaurant." "So long," said Port. Tunner went out. He returned an hour later, less belligerent and slightly crest-fallen. Port and Kit were still in the patio, sitting over coffee and waving away flies. "How was it? Did you find anything?" they asked. "The food? Damned good." He sat down. "But I can't get any information on how to get out of this place." Port, whose opinion of his friend's mastery of the French language had never been high, said: "Oh." A few minutes later he got up and went out into the town to collect by himself whatever bits of knowledge he could relating to the transportation facilities of the region. The heat was oppressive, and he had not eaten well. In spite of these things he whistled as he walked along under the deserted arcades, because the idea of getting rid of Tunner made him unaccountably lively. Already he was noticing the flies less. Late in the afternoon a large automobile drew up in front of the hotel entrance. It was the Lyles' Mercedes. "Of all the utterly idiotic things to have done! To try to find some lost village no one ever heard of!" Mrs. Lyle was saying. "You nearly made me miss tea. I suppose you'd have thought that amusing. Now drive away these wretched brats and come in here. Mosh! Mosh!" she cried, suddenly charging at a group of native youngsters who had approached the car. "Mosh! Imshi!" She raised her handbag in a menacing gesture; the bewildered children slowly backed away from her. "I must find the right term to get rid of them with here," said Eric, jumping out and slamming the door. "It's no use saying you'll get the police. They don't know what that is." "What nonsense! Police, indeed! Never threaten natives with the local authorities. Remember, we don't recognize French sovereignty here." "Oh, that's in the Rif, Mother, and it's Spanish sovereignty." "Eric! Will you be quiet? Don't you think I know what Madame Gautier told me? What do you mean?" She stopped as she saw the table under the arcade, still laden with the dirty dishes and glasses left by Port and Kit. "Hello! Someone else has arrived," she said in a tone that denoted the greatest interest. She turned accusingly to Eric. "And they've eaten outside! I told you we could have eaten outside, if you'd only insisted a bit. The tea's in your room. Will you bring it down? I must see about that putrid fire in the kitchen. And get out the sugar and open a new tin of biscuits." As Eric returned through the patio with the box of tea, Port came in the door from the street. "Mr. Moresby!" he cried. "What a pleasant surprise!" Port tried to keep his face from falling. "Hello," he said. "What are you doing here? I thought I'd recognized your car outside." "Just one second. I've got to deliver this tea to Mother. She's in the kitchen waiting for it." He rushed through the side door, stepping on one of the obscene dogs that lay exhausted just inside in the dark. It yelped lengthily. Port hurried upstairs to Kit and imparted the latest bad news to her. A minute later Eric pounded on the door. "I say, do have tea with us in ten minutes in room eleven. How nice to see you, Mrs. Moresby." Room eleven was Mrs. Lyle's, longer but no less bare than the others, and directly over the entrance. While she drank her tea, she kept rising from the bed where everyone was sitting for lack of chairs, going to the window and crying "Mosh! Mosh!" into the street. Presently Port could no longer contain his curiosity. "What is that strange word you're calling out the window, Mrs. Lyle? " "I'm driving those thiving little niggers away from my car." "But what are you saying to them? Is it Arabic?" "It's French," she said, "and it means get out." "I see. Do they understand it?" "They'd jolly well better. More tea, Mrs. Moresby!" Tunner had begged off, having heard enough about the Lyles from Kit's description of Eric. According to Mrs. Lyle, Ain Krorfa was a charming town, especially the camel market, where there was a baby camel they must photograph. She had taken several shots of it that morning. "It's too sweet," she said. Eric sat devouring Port with his eyes. "He wants more money," Port thought. Kit noticed his extraordinary expression, too, but she put a different interpretation on it. When tea was over, and they were taking their leave, since they seemed to have exhausted all the possible subjects for conversation, Eric turned to Port. "If I don't see you at dinner, I'll drop in on you tonight afterward. What time do you go to bed?" Port was vague. "Oh, any time, more or less. We'll probably be out fairly late looking around the town." "Righto," said Eric, patting his shoulder affectionately as he shut the door. When they got back to Kit's room she stood gazing out the window at the skeletal fig tree. "I wish we'd gone to Italy," she said. Port looked up quickly. "Why do you say that? Is it because of them, because of the hotel?" "Because of everything." She turned toward him, smiling. "But I don't really mean it. This is just the right hour to go out. Let's." Ain Krorfa was beginning to awaken from its daily sun-drugged stupor. Behind the fort, which stood near the mosque on a high rocky hill that rose in the very middle of the town, the streets became informal, there were vestiges of the original haphazard design of the native quarter. In the stalls, whose angry lamps had already begun to gutter and flare, in the open cafes where the hashish smoke hung in the air, even in the dust of the hidden palm-bordered lanes, men squatted, fanning little fires, bringing their tin vessels of water to a boil, making their tea, drinking it. "Teatime! They're really Englishmen dressed for a masquerade," said Kit. She and Port walked very slowly, hand in hand, perfectly in tune with the soft twilight. It was an evening that suggested languor rather than mystery. They came to the river, here merely a flat expanse of white sand stretching away in the half light, and followed it a while until the sounds of the town became faint and high in the distance. Out here the dogs barked behind the walls, but the walls themselves were far from the river. Ahead of them a fire burned; seated by it was a solitary man playing a flute, and beyond him in the shifting shadows cast by the flames, a dozen or so camels rested, chewing solemnly on their cuds. The man looked toward them as they passed, but continued his music. "Do you think you can be happy here?" asked Port in a hushed voice. Kit was startled. "Happy? Happy? How do you mean?� "Do you think you'll like it?" "Oh, I don't know!" she said, with an edge of annoyance in her voice. "How can I tell? It's impossible to get into their lives, and know what they're really thinking." "I didn't ask you that," Port remarked, nettled. "You should have. That's what's important here." "Not at all," he said. "Not for me. I feel that this town, this river, this sky, all belong to me as much as to them." She felt like saying: "Well, you're crazy," but she confined herself to: "How strange." They circled back toward the town, taking a road that led between garden walls. "I wish you wouldn't ask me such questions," she said suddenly. "I can't answer them. How could I say: yes, I'm going to be happy in Africa? I like Ain Krorfa very much, but I can't tell whether I want to stay a month or leave tomorrow." "You couldn't leave tomorrow, for that matter, even if you did want to, unless you went back to Boussif. I found out about the buses. It's four days before the one for Bou Noura leaves. And it's forbidden to get rides on trucks to Messad now. They have soldiers who check along the way. There's a heavy fine for the drivers." "So we're stuck in the Grand Hotel." "With Tunner," thought Port. Aloud: "With the Lyles." "God forbid," Kit murmured. "I wonder how long we've got to keep on running into them. I wish to hell they'd either get ahead of us once and for all, or let us get ahead of them and stay there." "Things like that have to be arranged," said Kit. She, too, was thinking of Tunner. It seemed to her that if presently she were not going to have to sit opposite him over a meal, she could relax completely now, and live in the moment, which was Port's moment. But it seemed useless even to try, if in an hour she was going to be faced with the living proof of her guilt. It was completely dark when they got back to the hotel. They ate fairly late, and after dinner, since no one felt like going out, they went to bed. This process took longer than usual because there was only one wash basin and water pitcher-on the roof at the end of the corridor. The town was very quiet. Some cafe radio was playing a transcription of a record by Abd-elWahab: a dirge-like popular song called: I Am Weeping Upon Your Grave. Port listened to the melancholy notes as he washed; they were broken into by nearby outbursts of dogs barking. He was already in bed when Eric tapped on his door. Unfortunately he had not turned off his light, and for fear that it showed under the door he did not dare pretend to be asleep. The fact that Eric tiptoed into the room, a conspiratorial look on his face, displeased him. He pulled his bathrobe on. "What's the matter?" he demanded. "Nobody's asleep." "I hope I'm not disturbing you, old man." As always, he appeared to be talking to the corners of the room. "No, no. But it's lucky you came when you did. Another minute and my light would have been out." "Is your wife asleep?" "I believe she's reading. She usually does before she goes to sleep. Why?" "I wondered if I might have that novel she promised me this afternoon." "When, now?" He passed Eric a cigarette and lit one himself. "Oh, not if it will disturb her." "Tomorrow would be better, don't you think?" said Port, looking at him. "Right you are. What I actually came about was that money-" He hesitated. "Which?" "The three hundred francs you lent me. I want to give them back to you." "Oh, that's quite all right." Port laughed, still looking at him. Neither one spoke for a moment. "Well, of course, if you like," Port said finally, wondering if by any unlikely chance he had misjudged the youth ' and somehow feeling more convinced than ever that he had not. "Ah, excellent," murmured Eric, fumbling about in his coat pocket. "I don't like to have these things on my conscience." "You didn't need to have it on your conscience, because if you'll remember, I gave it to you. But if you'd rather return it, as I say, naturally, that's fine with me." Eric had finally extracted a worn thousandfranc note, and held it forth with a faint, propitiatory smile. "I hope you have change for this," he said, finally looking into Port's face, but as though it were costing him a great effort. Port sensed that this was the important moment, but he had no idea why. "I don't know," he said, not taking the proffered bill. "Do you want me to look?" "If you could." His voice was very low. As Port clumsily got out of bed and went to the valise where he kept his money and documents, Eric seemed to take courage. "I do feel like a rotter, coming here in the middle of the night and bothering you this way, but first of all I want to get this off my mind, and besides, I need the change badly, and they don't seem to have any here in the hotel, and Mother and I are leaving first thing in the morning for Messad and I was afraid I might not see you again-" "You are? Messad?" Port turned, his wallet in his hand. "Really? Good Lord! And our

friend Mr. Tunner wants so much to go!" "Oh?" Eric stood up slowly. 'Oh?" he said again. "I daresay we could take him along." He looked at Port's face and saw it brighten. "But we're leaving at daybreak. You'd better go immediately and tell him to be ready downstairs at six-thirty. We've ordered tea for six o'clock. You'd better have him do likewise." "I'll do that," said Port, slipping his wallet into his pocket. "I'll also ask him for the change, which I don't seem to have." "Good. Good," Eric said with a smile, sitting down again on the bed. Port found Tunner naked, wandering distractedly around his room with a DDT bomb in his hand. "Come in, " he said. "This stuff is no good." "What have you got?" "Bedbugs, for one thing." "Listen. Do you want to go to Messad tomorrow morning at six-thirty?" "I want to go tonight at eleven-thirty. Why?" "The Lyles will drive you." "And then what?" Port improvised. "They'll be coming back here in a few days and going straight on to Bou Noura. They'll take you down and we'll be there expecting you. Lyle's in my room now. Do you want to talk with him?" "No." There was a silence. The electric light suddenly went off, then came on, a feeble orange worm inside the bulb, so that the room looked as if it were being viewed through heavy black glasses. Tunner glanced at his disordered bed and shrugged. "What time did you say?" "Sixthirty they're going." "Tell him I'll be down at the door." He frowned at Port, a faint suspicion in his face. "And you. Why aren't you going. "They'll only take one," he lied, "and besides, I like it here." "You won't once you've gotten into your bed," said Tunner bitterly. "You'll probably have them in Messad too," Port suggested. He felt safe now. "I'll take my chances on any hotel after this one." "We'll look for you in a few days in Bou Noura. Don't crash any harems." He shut the door behind him and went back to his room. Eric was still sitting in the same position on the bed, but he had lighted another cigarette, "Mr. Tunner is delighted, and'll meet you at six-thirty down at the door. Oh, damn! I forgot to ask him about the change for your thousand francs." He hesitated, about to go back out. "Don't bother, please. He can change it for me tomorrow on the way, in case I need it changed." Port opened his mouth to say: 'But I thought you wanted to pay me back the three hundred." He thought better of it. Now that the thing was settled, it would be tragic to risk a slip-up, just for a few francs. So he smiled and said: "Surely. Well, I hope we'll see you when you come back." "Yes, indeed," smiled Eric, looking at the floor. He got up suddenly and went to the door. "Good night." "Good night." Port locked the door after him and stood by it, musing. Eric's behavior had impressed him as being unusually eccentric, yet he still suspected that it was explainable. Being sleepy, he turned off what remained of the light and got into bed. The dogs barked in chorus, far and nearby, but he was not molested by vermin. That night he awoke sobbing. His being was a well a thousand miles deep; he rose from the lower regions with a sense of infinite sadness and repose, but with no memory of any dream save the faceless voice that had whispered: "The soul is the weariest part of the body." The night was silent, save for a small wind that blew through the fig tree and moved the loops of wire hanging there. Back and forth they rubbed, creaking ever so slightly. After he had listened a while, he fell asleep. Chapter 16 Kit sat up in bed, her breakfast tray on her knees. The room was lighted by the reflection of the sun on the blue wall outside. Port had brought her her breakfast, having decided after observing their behavior that the servants were incapable of carrying out any orders whatever. She had eaten, and now was thinking of what he had told her (with ill-concealed relish) about having got rid of Tunner. Because she, too, had secretly wished him gone, it seemed to her a doubly ignoble thing to have done. But why? He had gone of his own free will. Then she realized that intuitively she already was aware of Port's next move: he would contrive to miss connections with Tunner at Bou Noura. She could tell by his behavior, in spite of whatever he said, that he had no intention of meeting him there. That was why it seemed unkind. The deceit of the maneuver, if she were correct, was too bald; she determined not to be a party to it. "Even if Port runs out on him, I'll stay and meet him." She reached over and set the tray on the jackal skin; badly cured, the pelt gave off a sour odor. "Or am I only trying to go on punishing myself by seeing Tunner in front of me every day?" she wondered. "Would it be better really to get rid of him?" If only it were possible to dig behind the coming weeks and know! The clouds above the mountains had been a bad sign, but not in the way she had imagined. Instead of the wreck there had been another experience which perhaps would prove more disastrous in its results. As usual she was being saved up for something worse than she expected. But she did not believe it was to be Tunner, so that it really was not important how she behaved now with regard to him. The other omens indicated a horror more vast, and surely ineluctable. Each escape merely made it possible for her to advance into a region of heightened danger. "In that case," she thought, "why not give in? And if I should give in, how would I behave? Exactly the same as now." So that giving in or not giving in had nothing to do with her problem. She was pushing against her own existence. All she could hope to do was eat, sleep and cringe before her omens. She spent most of the day in bed reading, getting dressed only to have lunch with Port down in the stinking patio under the arcade. Immediately on returning to her room she pulled her clothes off. The room had not been made up. She straightened the bed sheet and lay down again. The air was dry, hot, breathless. During the morning Port had been out in the town. She wondered how he could support the sun, even with his helmet; it made her ill to be in it even for five minutes. His was not a rugged body, yet he had wandered for hours in the oven-like streets and returned to eat heartily of the execrable food. And he had unearthed some Arab who expected them both to tea at six. He had impressed it upon her that on no account must they be late. It was typical of him to insist upon punctuality in the case of an anonymous shopkeeper in Ain Krorfa, when with his friends and with her he behaved in a most cavalier fashion, arriving at his appointments indifferently anywhere from a half-hour to two hours after the specified time. The Arab's name was Abdeslam ben Hadj Chaoui they called for him at his leather shop and waited for him to close and lock the front of it, He led them slowly through the twisting streets as the muezzin called, talking all the while in flowery French, and addressing himself principally to Kit. "How happy I am! This is the first time I have the honor to invite a lady, and a gentleman, from New York. How I should like to go and see New York! What riches! Gold and silver everywhere! Le grand luxe pour tout le monde, ah! Not like Ain Krorfa-sand in the streets, a few palms, hot sun, sadness always. It is a great pleasure for me to be able to invite a lady from New York. And a gentleman. New York! What a beautiful word!" They let him talk on. The garden, like all the gardens in Ain Krorfa, was really an orchard. Under the orange trees were small channels running with water fed from the well, which was built up on an artificial plateau at one end. The highest palms stood at the opposite end, near the wall that bordered the river-bed, and underneath one of these a great red and white wool rug was spread out. There they sat while a servant brought fire and the apparatus for making tea. The air was heavy with the odor of the spearmint that grew beside the water channels. "We shall talk a little, while the water boils," said their host, smiling beneficently from one to the other. "We plant the male palm here because it is more beautiful. In Bou Noura they think only of money. They plant the female. You know how they look? They are short and fat, they give many dates, but the dates are not even good, not in Bou Noura!" He laughed with quiet satisfaction. "Now you see how stupid the people are in Bou Noura!" The wind blew and the palm trunks slowly moved with it, their lofty tops swaying slightly in a circular motion. A young man in a yellow turban approached, greeted them gravely, and seated himself a little in the background, at the edge of the rug. From under his burnous he brought forth an oud, whose strings he began to pluck casually, looking off under the trees all the while. Kit drank her tea in silence, smiling from time to time at M. Chaoui's remarks. At one point she asked Port in English for a cigarette, but he frowned, and she understood that it would shock the others to see a lady smoke. And so she sat drinking the tea, feeling that what she saw and heard around her was not really happening, or if it were, she was not really there herself. The light was fading; little by little the pots of coals became the eyes' natural focusing point. Still the lute music went on, a patterned background for the aimless talk; listening to its notes was like watching the smoke of a cigarette curl and fold in untroubled air. She had no desire to move, speak, or even think. But suddenly she was cold. She interrupted the conversation to say so. M. Chaoui was not pleased to hear it; he considered it a piece of incredible rudeness. He smiled, and said: "Ah, yes. Madame is blonde. The blondes are like the seguia when it has no water in it. The Arabs are like the seguias of Ain Krorfa. The seguias of Ain Krorfa are always full. We have flowers, fruit, trees." "Yet you say Ain Krorfa is sad," said Port. "Sad?" repeated M. Chaoui with astonishment. "Ain Krorfa is never sad. It is peaceful and full of joy. If one offered me twenty million francs and a palace, I would not leave my native land." "Of course," Port agreed, and seeing that his host no longer desired to sustain the conversation, he said: "Since Madame is cold, we must go, but we thank you a thousand times. It has been a great privilege for us to be allowed to come to this exquisite garden." M. Chaoui did not rise. He nodded his head, extended his hand, said: "Yes, yes. Go, since it is cold." Both guests offered florid apologies for their departure: it could not be said that they were accepted with very good grace. "Yes, yes, yes," said M. Chaoui. "Another time perhaps it will be warmer." Port restrained his mounting anger, which, even as he was feeling it, made him annoyed with himself. "Au 'voir, cher monsieur," Kit suddenly said in a childish treble. Port pinched her arm. M. Chaoui had noticed nothing extraordinary; indeed, he unbent sufficiently to smile once more. The musician, still strumming on his lute, accompanied them to the gate, and solemnly said: "B'slemah" as he closed it after them. The road was almost dark. They began to

walk quickly. "I hope you're not going to blame me for that," began Kit defensively. Port slipped his arm around her waist. "Blame you! Why? How could I? And what difference does it make, anyway?" "Of course it makes a difference," she said. "If it doesn't, what was the point of seeing the man in the first place?" "Oh, point! I don't suppose there was any particular point. I thought it would be fun. And I still think it was; I'm glad we went." "So am I, in a way. It gave me a first-hand opportunity of seeing what the conversations are going to be like here--just how unbelievably superficial they can be." He let go of her waist. "I disagree. You don't say a frieze is superficial just because it has only two dimensions." "You do if you're accustomed to having conversation that's something more than decoration. I don't think of conversation as a frieze, myself." "Oh, nonsense! It's just another way of living they have, a completely different philosophy." "I know that," she said, stopping to shake sand from her shoe. "I'm just saying I could never live with it." He sighed: the tea-party had accomplished exactly the contrary to what he had hoped it might. She sensed what was in his mind, and presently she said: "Don't think about me. Whatever happens, I'll be all right if I'm with you. I enjoyed it tonight. Really." She pressed his hand. But this was not quite what he wanted; resignation was not enough. He returned her pressure halfheartedly. "And what was that little performance of yours at the end?" he asked a moment later. "I couldn't help it. He was being so ridiculous." "It's not a good idea generally to make fun of your host," he said coldly. "Oh, bah! If you noticed, he loved it. He thought I was being deferential." They ate quietly in the nearly-dark patio. Most of the garbage had been cleared away, but the stench of the latrines was as strong as ever. After dinner they went to their rooms and read. The next morning, when he took breakfast to her, he said: "I nearly paid you a visit last night. I couldn't seem to sleep. But I was afraid of waking you." "You should have rapped on the wall," she said. "I'd have heard you. I was probably awake." All that day he was unaccountably nervous; he attributed it to the seven glasses of strong tea he had drunk in the garden. Kit, however, had drunk as much as he, and she seemed not in the least nervous. In the afternoon he walked by the river, watched the Spahis training on their perfect white horses, their blue capes flying behind in the wind. Since his agitation appeared to be growing rather than diminishing with the passage of time, he set himself the task of tracing it to its source. He walked along with his head bent over, seeing nothing but the sand and glistening pebbles. Tunner was gone, Kit and he were alone. Everything now depended on him. He could make the right gesture, or the wrong one, but he could not know beforehand which was which. Experience had taught him that reason could not be counted on in such situations. There was always an extra element, mysterious and not quite within reach, that one had not reckoned with. One had to know, not deduce. And he did not have the knowledge. He glanced up; the river-bed had become enormously wide, the walls and gardens had receded into the distance. Out here there was no sound but the wind blowing around his head on its way from one part of the earth to another. Whenever the thread of his consciousness had unwound too far and got tangled, a little solitude could wind it quickly back. His state of nervousness was remediable in that it had to do only with himself: he was afraid of his own ignorance. If he desired to cease being nervous he must conceive a situation for himself in which that ignorance had no importance. He must behave as if there was no question of his having Kit, ever again. Then, perhaps, out of sheer inattention, automatically, it could happen. But should his principal concern at the moment be the purely egocentric one of ridding himself of his agitation, or the accomplishment of his original purpose in spite of it? "I wonder if after all I'm a coward?" he thought. Fear spoke; he listened and let it persuade-the classical procedure. The idea saddened him. Not far away, on a slight elevation at a point where the river's course turned sharply, was a small ruined building, without a roof, so old that a twisted tree had grown up inside it, covering the area within the walls with its shade. As he passed nearer to it and could see inside, he realized that the lower branches were hung with hundreds of rags, regularly torn strips of cloth that had once been white, all moving in the same direction with the wind. Faintly curious, he climbed the bank and went to investigate, but on approaching he saw that the ruin was occupied: an old, old man sat beneath the tree, his thin brown arms and legs bound with ancient bandages. Around the base of the trunk he had built a shelter; it was clear to see that he lived there. Port stood looking at him a long time, but he did not lift his head. Going more slowly, he continued. He had brought with him some figs, which he now pulled out and devoured. When he had followed the river's complete turning, he found himself facing the sun in the west, looking up a small valley that lay between two gently graded, bare hills. At the end was a steeper hill, reddish in color, and in the side of the hill was a dark aperture. He liked caves, and was tempted to set out for it. But distances here were deceptive, and there might not be time before dark; besides, he did not feel the necessary energy inside him. "Tomorrow I'll come earlier and go up," he said to himself. He stood looking up the valley a little wistfully, his tongue seeking the fig seeds between his teeth, with the small tenacious flies forever returning to crawl along his face. And it occurred to him that a walk through the countryside was a sort of epitome of the passage through life itself. One never took the time to savor the details; one said: another day, but always with the hidden knowledge that each day was unique and final, that there never would be a return, another time. Under his sun helmet his head was perspiring. He removed the helmet with its wet leather band, and let the sun dry his hair for a moment. Soon the day would be finished, it would be dark, he would be back at the foul-smelling hotel with Kit, but first he must decide what course to take. He turned and walked back toward the town. When he came opposite the ruin, he peered inside. The old man had moved; he was seated just inside what had once been the doorway. The sudden thought struck him that the man must have a disease. He hastened his step and, absurdly enough, held his breath until he was well past the spot. As he allowed the fresh wind to enter his lungs again, he knew what he would do: he would temporarily abandon the idea of getting back together with Kit. In his present state of disquiet he would be certain to take all the wrong turnings, and would perhaps lose her for good. Later, when he least expected it, the thing might come to pass of its own accord. The rest of his walking was done at a brisk pace, and by the time he was back in the streets of Ain Krorfa he was whistling. They were having dinner. A traveling salesman eating inside in the dining room had brought a portable radio with him and was tuned in to Radio Oran. In the kitchen a louder radio was playing Egyptian music. "You can put up with this sort of thing for just so long. Then you go crazy," said Kit. She had found patches of fur in her rabbit stew, and unfortunately the light in that part of the patio was so dim that she had not made the discovery until after she had put the food into her mouth. "I know," said Port absently. "I hate it as much as you. "No, you don't. But I think you would if you didn't have me along to do your suffering for you." "How can you say that? You know it's not so." He toyed with her hand: having made his decision he felt at ease with her. She, however, seemed unexpectedly irritable. "Another town like this will fix me up fine," she said. "I shall simply go back and take the first boat out for Genoa or Marseille. This hotel's a nightmare, a nightmare!" After Tunner's departure she had vaguely expected a change in their relationship. The only difference his absence made was that now she could express herself clearly, without fear of seeming to be choosing sides. But rather than make any effort to ease whatever small tension might arise between them, she determined on the contrary to be intransigent about everything. It could come about now or later, that much-awaited reunion, but it must be all his doing. Because neither she nor Port had ever lived a life of any kind of regularity, they both had made the fatal error of coming hazily to regard time as non-existent. One year was like another year. Eventually everything would happen. Chapter 17 The following night, which was the eve of their departure for Bou Noura, they had dinner early, and Kit went up to her room to pack. Port sat on at their dark table under the arcades, until the other diners inside had finished. He went into the empty dining room and wandered about aimlessly, looking at the proud proofs of civilization: the varnished tables covered with sheets of paper instead of tablecloths, the heavy glass salt shakers, and the opened bottles of wine with the identifying napkins tied around their necks. One of the pink dogs came crawling into the room from the kitchen, and seeing him, continued to the patio, where it lay down and sighed deeply. He walked through the door into the kitchen. In the center of the room, under the one weak light bulb, stood Mohammed holding a large butcher's knife with its point sticking in the table. Under the point was a cockroach, its legs still feebly waving. Mohammed regarded the insect studiously, He looked up and grinned. "Finished?" he asked. "What?" said Port. "Finished with dinner?" "Oh, yes." "Then I'll lock the dining room." He went and moved Port's table back into the room, turned off the lights and locked both doors. Then he put out the light in the kitchen. Port moved into the patio. "Going home to sleep?" he inquired. Mohammed laughed. "Why do you think I work all day? Just to go home to sleep? Come with me. I'll show you the best place in Ain Krorfa." Port walked with him out into the street, where they conversed for a few minutes. Then they moved off down the street together. The house was several houses, all with a common entrance through a large tiled courtyard. And each house had several rooms, all very small, and, with the exception of those on the ground floor, all at varying levels. As he stood in the courtyard in the faint light that was a blend of carbidelamp glare and starlight, all the bright little boxlike interiors looked like so many ovens around him. Most of them had their door or windows open, and were filled to bursting with men and girls, both sexes uniformly dressed in flowing white garments. It looked festive, and it exhilarated

him to see it; certainly he had no feeling that it was a vicious place, even though at first he tried hard to see it as such. They went to the door of a room opposite the entrance, and Mohammed peered in, saluting certain of the men sitting inside on the couches along the walls. He entered, motioning to Port to follow him. Room was made for them, and they sat down with the others. A boy took their order for tea and quickly ran out of the room across the court. Mohammed was soon engaged in conversation with a man sitting nearby. Port leaned back and watched the girls as they drank tea and chatted with the men, sitting opposite them on the floor; he was waiting for a licentious gesture, at least a hint of a leer. None was forthcoming. For some reason which he was unable to fathom, there were a good many small children running about the establishment. They were well behaved and quiet as they played in the gloomy courtyard, exactly as if it had belonged to a school instead of a brothel. Some of them wandered inside the rooms, where the men took them on their laps and treated them with the greatest affection, patting their cheeks and allowing them occasional puffs on their cigarettes. Their collective disposition toward contentment might easily be due, he thought, to the casual benevolence of their elders. If one of the younger ones began to shed tears, the men laughed and waved it away; it soon stopped. A fat black police dog waddled in and out of the rooms, sniffing shoes; it was the object of everyone's admiration. "The most beautiful dog in Ain Krorfa," said Mohammed as it appeared panting in the doorway near them. "It belongs to Colonel Lefilleul; he must be here tonight." When the boy returned with the tea he was accompanied by another, not more than ten years old, but with an ancient, soft face. Port pointed him out to Mohammed and whispered that he looked ill. "Oh, no! He's a singer." He signaled to the child, who began to clap his hands in a syncopated rhythm and utter a long repetitious lament built on three notes. To Port it seemed utterly incongruous and a little scandalous, hearing this recent addition to humanity produce a music so un-childlike and weary. While he was still singing, two girls came over and greeted Mohammed. Without any formalities he made them sit down and pour the tea. One was thin with a salient nose, and the other, somewhat younger, had the apple-like cheeks of a peasant; both bore blue tattoo marks on the foreheads and chins. Like all the women, their heavy robes were weighted down with an assortment of even heavier silver jewelry. For no particular reason neither one appealed to Port's fancy. There was something vaguely workaday about both of them; they were very much present. He could appreciate now what a find Marhnia had been, her treachery notwithstanding. He had not seen anyone here with half her beauty or style. When the child stopped singing Mohammed gave him some coins; he looked at Port expectantly as well, but Mohammed shouted at him, and he ran out. There was music in the next room: the sharp reedy rhiata and the dry drums beneath. Since the two girls bored him, Port excused himself and went into the courtyard to listen. In front of the musicians in the middle of the floor a girl was dancing, if indeed the motions she made could properly be called a dance. She held a cane in her two hands, behind her head, and her movements were confined to her agile neck and shoulders. The motions, graceful and of an impudence verging on the comic, were a perfect translation into visual terms of the strident and wily sounds of the music. What moved him, however, was not the dance itself so much as the strangely detached, somnambulistic expression of the girl. Her smile was fixed, and, one might have added, her mind as well, as if upon some object so remote that only she knew of its existence. There was a supremely impersonal disdain in the unseeing eyes and the curve of the placid lips. The longer he watched, the more fascinating the face became; it was a mask of perfect proportions, whose beauty accrued less from the configuration of features than from the meaning that was implicit in their expressionmeaning, or the withholding of it. For what emotion lay behind the face it was impossible to tell. It was as if she were saying: "A dance is being done. I do not dance because I am not here. But it is my dance." When the piece drew to its conclusion and the music had stopped, she stood still for a moment, then slowly lowered the cane from behind her head, and tapping vaguely on the floor a few times, turned and spoke to one of the musicians. Her remarkable expression had not changed in any respect. The musician rose and made room for her on the floor beside him. The way he helped her to sit down struck Port as peculiar, and all at once the realization came to him that the girl was blind. The knowledge hit him like an electric shock; he felt his heart leap ahead and his head grow suddenly hot. Quickly he went back into the other room and told Mohammed he must speak with him alone. He hoped to get him into the courtyard so as not to be obliged to go through his explanation in front of the girls, even though they spoke no French. But Mohammed was disinclined to move. "Sit down, my dear friend," he said, pulling at Port's sleeve. Port, however, was far too concerned lest his prey escape him to bother being civil. "Non, non, non!" he cried. "Viens vite!" Mohammed shrugged his shoulders in deference to the two girls, rose and accompanied him into the courtyard, where they stood by the wall under the light. Port asked him first if the dancing girls were available, and felt his spirits fall when Mohammed told him that many of them had lovers, and that in such cases they merely lived in the house as registered prostitutes, using it only as a home, and without engaging in the profession at all. Naturally those with lovers were given a wide berth by everyone else. "Bsif Forcement! Throats are sliced for that," he laughed, his brilliant red gums gleaming like a dentist's model in wax. This was an angle Port had not considered. Still, the case merited a determined effort. He drew Mo. hammed over near the door of the adjacent cubicle, in which she sat, and pointed her out to him. "Find out for me about that one there," he said. "Do you know her?" Mohammed looked. "No," he said at length. "I will find out. If it can be arranged, I myself will arrange it and you pay me a thousand francs. That will be for her, and enough for me to buy coffee and breakfast." The price was too high for Aln Krorfa, and Port knew it. But this seemed to him a poor time to begin bargaining, and he accepted the arrangement, going back, as Mohammed bade him do, into the first room and sitting down again with the two dull girls. They were now engaged in a very serious conversation with each other, and scarcely noticed his arrival. The room buzzed with talk and laughter; he sat back and listened to the sound of it; even though he could not understand a word of what was being said he enjoyed studying the inflections of the language. Mohammed was out of the room for quite a while. It began to be late, the number of people sitting about gradually diminished as the customers either retired to inner chambers or went home. The two girls sat on, talking, interspersing their words now with occasional fits of laughter in which they held onto one another for mutual support. He wondered if he ought to go in search of Mohammed. He tried to sit quietly and be part of the timelessness of the place, but the occasion scarcely lent itself to that kind of imaginative play. When he finally did go into the courtyard to look for him, he immediately caught sight of him in an opposite room, reclining on a couch smoking a hashish pipe with some friends. He went across and called to him, remaining outside because he did not know the etiquette of the hashish chamber. It appeared, however, that there was none. "Come in," said Mohammed from the cloud of pungent smoke. "Have a pipe." He went in, greeted the others, and said in a low voice to Mohammed: "And the girl?" Mohammed looked momentarily blank. Then he laughed: "Ah, that one? You have bad luck, my friend. You know what she has? She is blind, the poor thing." "I know, I know," he said impatiently, and with mounting apprehension. "Well, you don't want her, do you? She is blind!" Port forgot himself. "Mais bien sur que je la veux!" he shouted. "Of course I do! Where is she?" Mohammed raised himself a little on one elbow. "Ah!" he grunted. "By now, I wonder! Sit down here and have a pipe. It's among friends." Port turned on his heel in a rage and strode out into the court, where he made a systematic search of the cubicles from one side of the entrance to the other. But the girl was gone. Furious with disappointment, he walked through the gate into the dark street. An Arab soldier and a girl stood just outside the portal, talking in low tones. As he went past them he stared intently into her face. The soldier glared at him, but that was all. It was not she. Looking up and down the ill-lit street, he could discern two or three whiterobed figures in the distance to the left and to the right. He started walking, viciously kicking stones out of his path. Now that she was gone, he was persuaded, not that a bit of enjoyment had been denied him, but that he had lost love itself. He climbed the hill and sat down beside the fort, leaning against the old walls. Below him were the few lights of the town, and beyond was the inevitable horizon of the desert. She would have put her hands up to his coat lapels, touched his face tentatively, run her sensitive fingers slowly along his lips. She would have sniffed the brilliantine in his hair and examined his garments with care. And in bed, without eyes to see beyond the bed, she would have been completely there, a prisoner. He thought of the little games he would have played with her, pretending to have disappeared when he was really still there; he thought of the countless ways he could have made her grateful to him. And always in conjunction with his fantasies he saw the imperturbable, faintly questioning face in its mask-like symmetry. He felt a sudden shudder of self pity that was almost pleasurable, it was such a complete expression of his mood. It was a physical shudder; he was alone, abandoned, lost, hopeless, cold. Cold especially-a deep interior cold nothing could change. Although it was the basis of his unhappiness, this glacial deadness, he would cling to it always, because it was also the core of his being, he had built the being around it. But at the moment he felt bodily cold, too, and this was strange because he had just climbed the hill fast and was still panting a little. Seized by a sudden fear, akin to the terror of the child when it brushes against an unidentifiable object in the dark, he jumped up and ran along the crest of the hill until he came to the path that led below to the market place. Running assuaged his fear, but when he stopped and looked down at the ring of lights around the market he still felt the cold, like a piece of metal inside him. He ran on down the hill, deciding to go to the hotel and get the whiskey in his room, and since the kitchen was locked, take it back to the brothel where he could make himself a hot grog with some tea. As he went into the patio he had to step over the watchman lying across the threshold. The man

raised himself slightly and called out: "Echkoun? Qui?" "Numero vingt!" he cried, hurrying through the foul smells. No light came from under Kit's door. In his room he took up the bottle of whiskey and looked at his watch, which out of caution he had left behind on the night table. It was three-thirty. He decided that if he walked quickly he could get there and be back in his room by half-past four, unless they had let the fires go out. The watchman was snoring when he went out into the street. There he forced himself to take strides so long that the muscles of his legs rebelled, but the exercise failed to mitigate the chill he felt everywhere within him. The town seemed completely asleep. No music was audible as he approached the entrance of the house. The courtyard was totally dark and so were most of the rooms. A few of them, however, were still open and had lights. Mohammed was there, stretched out, talking with his friends. "Well, did you find her?" he said as Port entered the room. "What are you carrying there?" Port held up the bottle, smiling faintly. Mohammed frowned. "You don't want that, my friend. That's very bad. It turns your head." He made spiral gestures with one hand and tried to wrest the bottle away from Port with the other. "Have a pipe with me," he urged. "It's better. Sit down." "I'd like more tea," said Port. "It's too late," said Mohammed with great assurance. "Why?" Port asked stupidly. "I must." "Too late. No fire," Mohammed announced, with a certain satisfaction. "After one pipe you forget you wanted tea. In any case you have already drunk tea." Port ran out into the courtyard and clapped his hands loudly. Nothing happened. Thrusting his head into one of the cubicles where he saw a woman seated, he asked in French for tea. She stared at him. He asked in his halting Arabic. She answered that it was too late. He said, "A hundred francs." The men murmured among themselves; a hundred francs seemed an interesting and reasonable offer, but the woman, a plump, middle-aged matron, said: "No." Port doubled his offer. The woman rose and motioned him to accompany her. He walked behind her, beneath a curtain hung across the back wall of the room, and through a series of tiny, dark cells, until finally they were out under the stars. She stopped and indicated that he was to sit on the ground and wait for her. A few paces from him she disappeared into a separate hut, where he heard her moving about. Nearer still to him in the dark an animal of some sort was sleeping; it breathed heavily and stirred from time to time. The ground was cold and he began to shiver. Through the breaks in the wall he saw a flicker of light. The woman had lighted a candle and was breaking bundles of twigs. Presently he heard them crackling in flames as she fanned the fire. The first cock was crowing when she finally came out of the shack with the pot of coals. She led the way, sparks trailing behind her, into one of the dark rooms through which they had passed, and there she set it down and put the water to boil. There was no light but the red glow of the burning charcoal. He squatted before the fire holding his hands fanwise for the warmth. When the tea was ready to drink, she pushed him gently back until he found himself against a mattress. He sat on it; it was warmer than the floor. She handed him a glass. "Meziane, skhoun b'zef," she croaked, peering at him in the fading light. He drank half a glassful and filled it to the top with whiskey. After repeating the process, he felt better. He relaxed a bit and had another. Then for fear he should begin to sweat, he said: "Baraka," and they went back to the room where the men lay smoking. Mohammed laughed when he saw them. "What have you been doing?" he said accusingly. He rolled his eyes toward the woman. Port felt a little sleepy now and thought only of getting back to the hotel and into bed. He shook his head. "Yes, Yes," insisted Mohammed, determined to have his joke. "I know! The young Englishman who went to Messad the other day, he was like you. Pretending always to be innocent. He pretended the woman was his mother, that he never would go near her, but I caught them together." Port did not answer immediately. Then he jumped, and cried: "What!" "Of course! I opened the door of room eleven, and there they are in the bed. Naturally. You believed him when he said she was his mother?" he added, noticing Port's incredulous expression. "You should have seen what I saw when I opened the door. Then you would know what a liar he was! Just because the lady is old, that does not stop her. No, no, no! Nor the man. So I say, what have you been doing with her. No?" He went on laughing. Port smiled and paid the woman, saying to Mohammed: "Look. You see, I'm paying only two hundred francs I promised for the tea. You see?" Mohammed laughed louder. "Two hundred francs for tea! Too much for such old tea! I hope you had two glasses, my friend." "Good night," said Port to the room in general, and he went out into the street. BOOK TWO THE EARTH'S SHARP EDGE 'Good-bye,' says the dying man to the mirror they hold in front of him. 'We won't be seeing each other any more. --VALERY CHAPTER 18 As commander of the military post of Bou Noura, Lieutenant d'Armagnac found the life there full if somewhat unvaried. At first there had been the novelty of his house; his books and furniture had been sent down from Bordeaux by his family, and he had experienced the pleasure of seeing them in new and unlikely surroundings. Then there had been the natives. The lieutenant was intelligent enough to insist on allowing himself the luxury of not being snobbish about the indigenous population. His overt attitude toward the people of Bou Noura was that they were an accessible part of a great, mysterious tribe from whom the French could learn a great deal if they only would take the trouble. And since he was an educated man, the other soldiers at the post, who would have enjoyed seeing all the natives put behind barbed wire and left there to rot in the sun ("... comme on a fait en Tripolitaine"), did not hold his insanely benevolent attitude against him, contenting themselves by saying to one another that some day he would come to his senses and realize what worthless scum they really were. The lieutenant's true enthusiasm for the natives had lasted three years. About the time he had grown tired of his half-dozen or so Ouled NaYl mistresses, the period of his great devotion to the Arabs came to an end. It was not that he became any less objective in meting out justice to them; it was rather that he suddenly ceased thinking about them and began taking them for granted. That same year he had gone back to Bordeaux for a six weeks' stay. There he had renewed his acquaintance with a young lady whom he had known since adolescence; but she had acquired a sudden and special interest for him by declaring, as he was about to leave for North Africa to resume his duties, that she could imagine nothing more wonderful and desirable than the idea of spending the rest of her life in the Sahara, and that she considered him the luckiest of men to be on his way back there. A correspondence had ensued, and letters had gone back and forth between Bordeaux and Bou Noura. Less than a year later he had gone to Algiers and met her as she got off the boat. The honeymoon had been spent in a little bougainvillaea-covered villa up at Mustapha-Superieur (it had rained every day), after which they had returned together to the sunlit rigors of Bou Noura. It was impossible for the lieutenant to know how nearly her preconceived notion of the place had coincided with what she had discovered to be its reality; he did not know whether she was going to like it or not. At the moment she was already back in France waiting for their first child to be born. Soon she would return and they would be better able to tell. At present he was bored. After Mme. d'Armagnac had left, the lieutenant had attempted to pick up his old life where he had broken it off, but he found the girls of the Bou Noura quartier exasperatingly uncomplicated after the more evolved relationship to which he latterly had become accustomed. Thus he had occupied himself with building an extra room onto his house to surprise his wife on her return. It was to be an Arab salon. Already he was having the coffee table and couches built, and he had bought a beautiful, large cream-colored wool rug for the wall, and two sheepskins for the floor. It was during the fortnight when he was arranging this room that the trouble began. The trouble, while it was nothing really serious, had managed to interfere with his work, a fact which could not be overlooked. Moreover, being an active man, he was always bored when he was confined to his bed, and he had been there for several days. Actually it had been a question of bad luck; if only someone else had happened on it-a native, for instance, or even one of his inferiors-he would not have been obliged to give the thing so much attention. But he had had the misfortune to discover it himself one morning while making his semi-weekly tour of inspection of the villages. Thereby it became official and important. It had been just outside the walls of Igherm, which he always visited directly after Tolfa, passing on foot through the cemetery and then climbing the hill; from the big gate of Igherm he could see the valley below where a soldier from the Poste waited in a truck to pick him up and carry him on to Beni Isguen, which was too far to walk. As he had been about to go through the gate into the village, his attention had been drawn by something which ought to have looked perfectly normal. A dog was running along with something in its mouth, something large and suspiciously pink, part of which dragged along the ground. But he had stared at the object. Then he had made a short walk along the outside of the wall and had met two other dogs coming toward him with similar prizes. Finally he had come upon what he was looking for: it was only an infant, and in all likelihood it had been killed that morning. Wrapped in the pages of some old numbers of L'Echo d'Alger, it had been tossed into a shallow ditch. After questioning several people who had been outside the gate that morning he was able to ascertain that a certain Yamina ben Rhaissa had been seen shortly after sunrise entering the gate, and that this was not a regular occurrence. He had no difficulty in locating Yamina; she lived nearby with her mother. At first she had denied hysterically all knowledge of the crime, but when he had taken her alone out of the house to the edge of the village and had talked

with her in what he considered a "reasonable" fashion for five minutes she had calmly told him the entire story. Not the least surprising part of her tale was the fact that she had been able to conceal her pregnancy from her mother, or so she said. The lieutenant had been inclined to disbelieve this until he reflected upon the number of undergarments worn by the women of the region; then he decided that she was telling the truth. She had got the older woman out of the house by means of a stratagem, had given birth to the infant, strangled it and deposited it outside the gate wrapped in newspaper. By the time her mother had returned, she was already washing the floor. Yamina's principal interest at this point seemed to be in finding out from the lieutenant the names of the persons who had made it possible for him to find her. She was intrigued by his swift detection of her act, and she told him so. This primitive insouciance rather amused him, and for a quarter of an hour or so he actually allowed himself to consider how he could best arrange to spend the night with her. But by the time he had made her walk with him down the hill to the road where the truck was waiting, already he viewed his fantasies of a few minutes back with astonishment. He canceled the visit to Beni Isguen and took the girl straight to his headquarters. Then he remembered the infant. Seeing that Yamina was safely locked up, he hurried with a soldier to the spot and collected for evidence what small parts of the body were still left. It was on the basis of these few bits of flesh that Yamina was installed in the local prison, pending removal to Algiers for trial. But the trial never took place. During the third night of her imprisonment a gray scorpion, on its way along the earthen floor of her cell, discovered an unexpected and welcome warmth in one corner, and took refuge there. When Yamina stirred in her sleep, the inevitable occurred. The sting entered the nape of the neck; she never recovered consciousness. The news of her death quickly spread around the town, with the detail of the scorpion missing from the telling of it, so that the final and, as it were, official native version was that the girl had been assaulted by the entire garrison, including the lieutenant, and thereafter conveniently murdered. Naturally, it was not everyone who lent complete credence to the tale, but there was the indisputable fact that she had died while in French custody. Whatever the natives believed, the prestige of the lieutenant went into a definite decline. The lieutenant's sudden unpopularity had immediate results: the workmen failed to appear at his house in order to continue the construction of the new salon. To be sure, the mason did arrive, only to sit in the garden all morning with Ahmed the houseboy, trying to persuade him (and in the end successfully) not to remain another day in the employ of such a monster. And the lieutenant had the quite correct impression that they were going out of their way to avoid meeting him in the street. The women especially seemed to fear his presence. When the news got around that he was in the neighborhood the streets cleared of themselves; all he heard as he walked along was the bolting of doors. If men passed it was with their eyes averted. These things constituted a blow to his prestige as an administrator, but they affected him rather less than the discovery, made the very day he took to his bed with a singular combination of cramps, dizziness and nausea, that his cook, who for some reason had stayed on with him, was a first cousin of the late Yamina. The arrival of a letter from his commanding officer in Algiers made him no happier. There was no question, it said, of the justice of his procedure: the bits of evidence were in a jar of formaldehyde at the Tribunal of Bou Noura, and the girl had confessed. But it did criticize the lieutenant's negligence, and, which was more painful to him, it raised the question of his fitness to deal with the "native psychology." He lay in his bed and looked at the ceiling; he felt weak and unhappy. It was nearly time for Jacqueline to come and prepare him his noonday consomme. (At the first cramp he had immediately got rid of his cook; he knew that much about dealing with the native psychology.) Jacqueline had been born in Bou Noura of an Arab father-at least, so it was said, and from tier features and complexion it was easy to believe-and a French mother who had died shortly after her birth. What the Frenchwoman had been doing in Bou Noura all alone no one ever knew. But it was all in the distant past; Jacqueline had been taken in by the Peres Blancs and raised in the Mission. She knew all the songs the Fathers labored so diligently to teach the children-indeed, she was the only one who did know them. Besides learning to sing and pray she had also learned how to cook, which last talent proved to be a true blessing for the Mission since the unfortunate Fathers had been living on the local cuisine for many years and all suffered with their livers. When Father Lebrun had learned of the lieutenant's dilemma he straightway had volunteered to send Jacqueline to replace his cook and prepare him two simple meals a day. The Father had come himself the first day, and after looking at the lieutenant had decided that there would be no danger in letting her visit him, at least for a few days. He relied upon Jacqueline to warn him of her patient's progress, because once he was on the road to recovery, the lieutenant's behavior could no longer be counted on. He had said, looking down at him as he lay in his tousled bed: "I leave her in your hands, and you in God's." The lieutenant had understood what he meant, and he had tried to smile, but he felt too sick. Still, now as he thought of it he smiled, since he considered Jacqueline a wretched, skinny thing at whom no one would look twice. She was late that noon, and when she arrived she was in a breathless state because Corporal Dupeyrier had stopped her near the Zaouia and given her a very important message for him. It was a matter of a foreigner, an American, who had lost his passport. "An American?" echoed the lieutenant. "In Bou Noura?" Yes, said Jacqueline. He was here with his wife, they were at Abdelkader's pension (which was the only place they could have been, since it was the only hostelry of any sort in the region), and they had already been in Bou Noura several days. She had even seen the gentleman: a young man. "Well," said the lieutenant, "I'm hungry. How about a little rice today? Have you time to prepare it?" AH, yes, monsieur. But he told me to tell you that it is important you see the American today." "What are you talking about? Why should I see him? I can't find his passport for him. When you go back to the Mission, pass by the Poste and tell Corporal Dupeyrier to tell the American he must go to Algiers, to his consul. If he doesn't already know it," he added. "Ah, ce n'est pas pour ca! It's because he accused Monsieur Abdelkader of stealing the passport." "What?" roared the lieutenant, sitting up. "Yes. He went yesterday to file a complaint. And Monsieur Abdelkader says that you will oblige him to retract it. That's why you must see him today." Jacqueline, obviously delighted with the degree of his reaction, went into the kitchen and began to rattle the utensils loudly. She was carried away by the idea of her importance. The lieutenant slumped back into this bed and fell to worrying. It was imperative that the American be induced to withdraw his accusation, not only because Abdelkader was an old friend of his, and was quite incapable of stealing anything whatever, but particularly because he was one of the best known and highly esteemed men of Bou Noura. As proprietor of the inn he maintained close friendships with the chauffeurs of all the buses and trucks that passed through the territory; in the Sahara these are important people. Assuredly there was not one of them who at one time or another had not asked for, and received, credit from Abdelkader on his meals and lodgings; most of them had even borrowed money from him. For an Arab he was amazingly trusting and easy-going about money, both with Europeans and with his compatriots, and everyone liked him for it. Not only was it unthinkable that he should have stolen the passport-it was just as unthinkable that he should be formally accused of such a thing. For that reason the corporal was right. The complaint must be retracted immediately. "Another stroke of bad luck," he thought. "Why must it be an American?" With a Frenchman he would have known how to go about persuading him to do it without any unpleasantness. But with an American! Already he could see him: a gorilla-like brute with a fierce frown on his face, a cigar in the corner of his mouth, and probably an automatic in his hip pocket. Doubtless no complete sentences would pass between them because neither one would be able to understand enough of the other's language. He began trying to recall his English: